


The Parent Trap

by CrazyStarFish



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Parent Trap (1998), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Camping, Crossdressing (Because Plot), Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Horses, Humor, M/M, Plotting, Pranks, Scheming, Swearing, Switching Places, Texting and Calling Fuckups, They're Pretty Androgynous so They Make it Work, Twins swapping places, instead of the dog they have Hank
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27981450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyStarFish/pseuds/CrazyStarFish
Summary: Twelve years after Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier break up, their children, twins Wanda and Pietro, meet at an almost all-mutant summer camp and hatch a plot to get them back together before Erik can sell his company and Charles marries someone not meant for him. Cue all the typical hijinks and shenanigans that come with such a plan, and buckle up folks. This summer's going to be one for the books.A re-telling of the popular Parent Trap movie.
Relationships: Azazel (X-Men)/Janos Quested, Charles Xavier/Emma Frost (brief), Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr/Magda (X-Men) (Past Relationship)
Comments: 78
Kudos: 141





	1. A Long Time Ago

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back on my bullshit and not stopping any time soon. Muhahahahahaha.
> 
> I'm still going to be updating Baby Hotline, of course, but once I thought of this, I literally could not stop.  
> I've got the first five chapters (including this one) already written out fully, and I'm working on chapter six, and while this will be heavily inspired by the movie, there's going to be scenes added or omitted as necessary, for plot and convience reasons as there's no way I'm gonna be able to memorize every line and detail in the movie, though I have tried my very best to get as much as I could from my rewatches.  
> I'm going to upload the first chapter today, and the second (and every other one after) on Mondays, to hopefully give me enough time to keep ahead of my upload schedule. All chapters after this one will be 2,000-4,000 words long, so don't be disappointed by how short this one is, I promise there's a lot more where it came from!
> 
> I hope you guys will enjoy this (wacky) fic. It's probably one of my favorites I've ever written, I literally wrote all five chapters in two days, I was so excited

_**Prologue, Tweleve Years Ago**_

"Really though darling, a _cruise liner?!"_ Charles exclaimed, looking at the extravagant displays of wealth and sea life everywhere in the suite of the _Elizabeth II_. Though he had grown up rich, a mere several months in Erik's presence left him rather more accustomed (and comfortable) with a more modest lifestyle.

"I thought it was fitting, seeing as how we met." Erik said, leaning down to kiss his hand, smiling as he did so, the memory of Charles rescuing a total stranger from drowning on another, humbler cruise ship passing through both of their minds.

How Charles loved to share his mind with Erik.

He blushed, glowing inside as he looked into the eyes of the man he had officially married only six hours ago. "Are you sure you're alright with _my_ sister watching _your_ children, love?

Erik snorted quietly, a sound only Charles could elicit from him, a sound he _delighted_ in hearing. "Azazel will keep her in line if she fucks up."

Charles shook his head as he adjusted his tie in the mirror, catching Erik's eye and blushing again. "Such vulgar language… and on our honeymoon too. Really, do you swear in front of the twins like this?

Erik moved Charles' hands off his tie and neatly fixed it for him. "Well.. first off, the twins are only three months old. I _doubt_ they'll pick up language _that_ quickly." He smiled as he straightened his coat out, humming under his breath.

"They are _your_ children-" Charles began, but was cut off by a small kiss.

" _Our_ children." Erik corrected, playing with his hair. Charles smiled, the thought still making him giddy.

" _Our_ children… they have your brains, love. They'll figure it out between the two of them. They already babble to each other, night and day."

"They do, and it is adorable to watch. Even _I_ can admit that… and secondly…" Erik's look became hungrier, and Charles was _very_ aware of the hand on his waist. "I'll make it up to you later… I'll apologize and everything, if you'd like, _liebing._ "

Charles nodded, fighting to keep his excitement at the prospects and implications of Erik's tone hidden. "I would like that… I would like that very much."

"Well then," Erik said slowly, as he grabbed Charles's hand and opened the door. "I hope I don't disappoint you."

The scene spread out below them, people slow dancing as a live orchestra played on the deck beneath a beautiful, warm, star-filled sky, was almost enough to make Charles forget to answer.

"My love," he said gently, as Erik twirled him around on the balcony in perfect tune to the melody around them. "You could never disappoint me. Not for anything." And he leaned forward to kiss him again, the sound of fireworks whistling in the air mimicking the way he felt when he looked in the eyes of the man he loved.

And as the night passed in a flurry of songs, tasteful food, and a photo courtesy of Janos that made Charles's heart soar every time he looked at it, he was never more sure of his words in his life.


	2. Hey, Ho, Let's Go!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnd here's the first chapter! I wrote this to help establish a few things here and there, and to get a better feel of the characters I was writing. I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Wanda threw her clothes into her suitcase without much care, debating on which posters to bring. 

Lorna, without a doubt, would find _some_ way to break into her room while she was away and she would _definitely_ try and take destroy some of her belongings, despite the multiple warnings, threats and plastic locks she had put up. She wished dearly that she had an _older_ sibling, someone to help plot against Lorna and outsmart her at the social functions _without_ resorting to her powers.

"Wanda!" Janos, her butler, and one of her favorite people called from downstairs. "Are you planning on coming down any time this century?!" 

Wanda huffed, yanking her drawers open at random with her powers to throw a box of oreos and a jar of peanut butter she had hidden from Lorna, as well as a brand new pair of hiking boots into her top-of-the-line backpack. "COMING!" 

Grabbing a _Hunger Games_ poster off the side of her wardrobe and chucking it vaguely towards her bags, she rushed over to her vanity, throwing various bottles of nail polish to the side and ground as she searched for her most prized possession, the one she kept safe in the fake bottom of her makeup drawer, in an old, yellow container- the torn picture of her father.

Wanda had looked over the picture many times since her birth father - famed architect and designer Erik Lehnsherr- had given it to her on her tenth birthday. It was the only picture she had of his ex-husband, and one of the few, rare glimpses she got into her Papa's past.

The man in the picture was shorter than her Papi, with curly brown hair and dazzling blue eyes, dressed in a tasteful suit, a gold band shining brightly on his left hand. He held a very kind look on his face, a look that was, presumably, held on her Papa's face too… but she wouldn't know that. The picture had been torn in two, after all.

Wanda wondered what the man was like, and where he was now. She wondered if he ever missed her Papa, and would ever come back to him. 

She wondered if she would ever meet him.

She wished she knew what he was like, too, before they split up when she was ten months and Lorna was ten days old. From what she'd been able to gather from Uncle Azazel and Janos, the split had been out of nowhere, confusing everyone as Charles Xavier left for California with his sister, paralyzed from the waist down from a car accident. According to them, Erik hadn't been the same since.

But that was eleven years ago. Now, at twelve, Wanda felt _very_ mature for her age, and resolved to ask her Papa more questions once she returned from the _awful_ summer camp he enrolled her in, located in the States and simply named _The Avengers._ It was "run" by esteemed scientists Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner, but everyone knew they hardly ever showed up, except to give a speech on the last day. 

Maybe she could get a picture with them or something.

Wanda sighed once more, flopping down on her bed, rolling onto her back and slipping her backpack on in one fluid motion she had practiced countless times that was _sure_ to impress the other kids at camp. Lorna had teased her for it, but once Wanda got back, she was sure she'd have more friends than her bratty younger sister.

And wouldn't _that_ be something.

"Wanda! You're going to be late for your flight!" This time, it was Lorna that yelled, and as annoying as she was, once _she_ was yelling at you, you had to get your shit together _fast._

With one last glance around her room, she grabbed her tote bag and rushed down the stairs, almost missing her Papa entirely in her hurry. Luckily, he was used to it, and simply reached out from the doorway of the library and gently grabbed her, spinning her around once and planting an overly dramatic kiss on her forehead.

Wanda pretended to squirm in his arms, a seemingly disgusted look on her face. But secretly, she liked the attention, and wished she got it more often from him.

"Look at you," Erik said, smiling widely. "Growing up already. Are you going to be alright on your flight, _liebing?"_

She nodded quickly, sticking her tongue out over his shoulder at Lorna, who blew a raspberry and ran off, green hair flying out behind her as she went to terrorize one of the poor maids, most likely. Lorna was a _menace._

Erik shook his head at the two of them, adjusting his grip on her to better hold her. "Come now, we must get you into the car before the rain starts."

Pretending to sigh and lean out of his arms for a moment, Wanda quickly pulled herself up again, crinkling his expensive suit as she threw her arms around his neck.

"I'll miss you," she whispered into his ear as he carried her outside, face turned away from the photographers she could _feel_ hiding in the bushes behind the gate. Erik seemed to sense them too, if the sudden appearance of no less than eight mangled cameras that were flown and thrown unceremoniously into the dumpster behind the mansion were any indication.

Wanda grinned, always delighting in any show of his powers. Erik matched her smile as he took her backpack, handed it to Janos, and placed her down with care into the limousine.

"I'll miss you too, my lovely little witch," He gently smoothed her hair back, taking both of her hands in his large, warmer ones. "But it's only for eight weeks. And it'll do you some good to get more sun, away from-" another crushed camera, another set of retreating footsteps. "-prying eyes." He finished, releasing one of her hands and rubbing the bridge of his nose. She hated it when he was stressed enough to do that, which was being more and more often as the years went on.

Wanda leaned forward to kiss his cheek, hugging him again. "Alright, alright…" she conceded. "But you _have_ to make sure Lory doesn't get into my room. Or my art supplies. Or messes with the koi fish, she's _always_ throwing rocks into the pond. Or-"

Erik chuckled, shaking his head again. "You worry too much, my love. But I promise I'll make sure she stays away from your art supplies and the fish."

 _"My_ fish," Wanda corrected proudly. It had been her idea to put a koi pond in the backyard, after all. She had them all named.

Erik nodded in agreement, smiling once more as he cupped her face. " _Your_ fish… yes, I do remember."

"Yet you always forget!" She exclaimed, laughing as he tickled her cheek with a lock of her hair.

Erik stood up, closing the door softly as Janos started the engine. Wanda rolled her window down, letting her father kiss her cheek one last time as she discreetly flipped Lorna off.

"None of that, now," he chaisted gently, pushing her hand back inside of the car. _Oops_. Not as discreet as she thought, then.

Wanda pouted, then smiled again and waved furiously as Janos pulled out of the driveway and away from the house, heading to the airport. Her eyes swept over the familiar landscapes and building she would not see again for three whole weeks, and wondered if anything would change while she was gone, or if _she_ would change.

Well. She'd just have to wait and see.

\---***---

"Pietro!" Raven hollered, bursting into his room, dressed in a tie-dye shirt and jean shorts. "Let's _go_ already!" 

She looked around his room, messy and strewn with random items that had no place being in a bedroom, such as a broken toaster and a large tractor tire leaning precariously next to an open window, crossing her arms. "Bag. _Now."_

Pietro smirked, then ran around his room in a blur of motion, grabbing all the essentials (including Oreos and peanut butter) as he threw them into a bag covered in pins and badges that looked like it was .02 seconds from falling apart. He held it out to her as she snatched it from him, picking him up and slinging him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry out to the car. "I swear, I should've convinced Charles to leave you at an orphanage _years_ ago. Or maybe a circus. You'd fit right in with all the monkeys there."

Pietro tuned her out, letting her carry him like the world's most sentient sack of potatoes out to the car. He was well accustomed to her particular brand of "tough love" that was more tough than love. Still, she was family, even _if_ she acted more like a bossy older sister than a cool aunt.

At least she still let him sneak cookies from the kitchen.

And yet, Pietro secretly _really_ liked her and her "take no shit" attitude. While his dad, wine maker and genetics professor Charles Xavier was a bit more… _passive,_ Raven had been the one to teach him how to throw a proper punch, how to jimmy a window open in detention, and even how to sneak out when your dad happened to be a telepath. She and Hank McCoy were the closest he got to siblings, and sometimes, though he was loathe to admit it, he kind of wanted a _younger_ sibling. Someone who would understand him, have pillow fights and break the bedroom windows of the biggest dickbags at a school with him so he wouldn't be alone in detention.

He sighed as Raven essentially dropped him at the feet of Charles, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Found the squirt," she said, messing his hair up and tossing his bag into the trunk of the car with little care. _Great._ Now his Oreos were crushed. Thanks for nothing, Raven.

As if he had read his mind (which was likely, all things considered) Charles rolled forward, patting his shoulder affectionately. "Don't worry, Pietro. We'll get you more cookies at the gas station."

"No the fuck we won't!" Raven cried with far too much glee, jamming the keys into the ignition and turning the car on. "He'll survive off of crappy camp food like the rest of the munchkins there, stop spoiling the kid, Charles."

Pietro sighed, rubbing his face dramatically. " _Ugggggggggh…_ why do _you_ have to be a camp counselor?! You don't even like kids!"

"Of course I do, or I would've murdered you in your sleep years ago." Raven responded, rolling Charles into the car and folding the armrest down so he could sit in his seat. Charles, to his credit, only sighed.

"What Raven _means_ to say is that she loves you very much and also enjoys her volunteer work." Pietro very much doubted that, and for very good reason.

"Charles, you and I both know it's either this or jail time." Raven said, throwing Charles's wheelchair into the back with _slightly_ more care, making them all wince. Two years ago, she had gone away to Britain for three months and came back with a warrant… and on Pietro's birthday, no less. It was by far the shittest present she had given him, even including the six inch keychain back scratcher he had gotten from her at seven years old. 

The only consolation he had gotten was from Charles, in the form of a torn photo of his other dad, a tall man with reddish brown hair and green eyes, dressed in a rich suit of plum and red. He was smiling, facing away from the camera, levitating two entwined spoons in the shape of a heart. Pietro had looked at the photo many times, even before it came into his possession.

He sometimes looked at that photo and wondered how a man could look at his dad with that much love and leave him. 

He wondered if he'd ever even _meet_ him, unlikely as it was.

A sudden snapping sound broke his train of thoughts. "-rth to Pietro, earth to Pietro! … what kind of soda do you want for the ride?" Raven asked, moving her hand away from his face once he focused on her. Charles looked disappointed in her rudeness, and gave him an apologetic look.

"I want Redbull." Pietro answered, smiling innocently. Raven's face deadpanned.

"That's it, you're getting water." As Pietro protested, and Hank ran up to the car to say goodbye, Raven continued, speaking over him. "Water from the _hose_ , in a dirty beer bottle, thrown at your head! … oh, hello Hank."

Hank huffed, knocking on the window to make Raven roll it down. He gave Pietro a bottle of what looked a lot like piss, blushing as his face brushed against Raven's.

"That's bug spray." Hank said, smiling proudly. "I improved upon the formulas of what Charles bought you. That stuff will repeal any type of bug for up to three days, no matter where you spray it."

Pietro rolled his own window down, sprayed the bottle, and cringed back. It even _smelled_ like piss.

"Sorry… I, uh… may have forgotten to add a fragrance to that." Hank said sheepishly. Pietro looked him dead in the eye as he emotionlessly dropped the bottle into one, then two, then three ziplock bags from his cargo shorts.

" … yeah, I can't blame you for that." Hank said, apologizing again. Honestly, between him and Charles, they were kinda pushovers. Small wonder why Raven was so… well, _Raven_ -like.

"Well, off to camp we go!" Raven shouted, holding her gaze on Hank's face a _little_ longer than was socially acceptable… if Hank held the capacity to pick up such nuances.

Pietro shared a _look_ with Charles. Raven could kiss that dude on the mouth and he'd _still_ think they were 'just good friends'. At this point, it was just sad to watch.

Hank stepped away from the car and waved shyly as Raven backed out of the driveway and down the dirt road. Pietro rolled his window down, putting his goggles on to protect his eyes from the dust particles as his long hair whipped around his face, eyes roaming over the fields of grape vines, fruit trees, and horse pastures. He wondered how the horses would fare while he was gone, if they'd miss him or simply carry on.

He hoped they missed him. He loved those horses.

Well, only time would tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooooooo! Next chapter = more characters = more fun. Stay tuned!


	3. Fresh Faced and Ready to GO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! This, while being on-time (technically) is also late, as I had planned to post this back on Friday but my job got in the way and I ended up working the whole weekend :/ which wasn't fun, but hey, I'm getting the chapter out now!
> 
> Next chapter is the fencing fight. I hope y'all are excited to read it, it's one of my favorite chapters I've written for this whole fic. I'm still polishing up some of the later chapters and haven't made much progress on the story chapter wise, but quality over quantity is best from what I've heard and hopefully it shows :D enjoy!

Alex Summers, one of the head counselors at camp, banged on the hood of Raven's car the second it rolled into his reach. His way of saying "Hello! Nice to see you again, as I missed you very much!"

"WHAT TOOK SO DAMN LONG?" he shouted, directing another batch of newbies to a cabin and off the road. "YOU'RE LATE."

"SQUIRT TOOK FOREVER TO PACK HIS SHIT." Raven responded through her open window, parking her car. A few kids looked impressed and giddy at the swearing, while the older kids and adults looked pained and bored. 

So it was really the same shit, as always.

Raven grinned as she hopped out of her car and popped the trunk open, dumping her bag into Alex's arms, causing him to stumble back. 

“So, are you ready to fucking die?” Raven asked cheerfully, as if she thought herself the most hilarious person alive.

“I’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me.” Alex said flatly, watching Raven extract a second bag that had seen better days and toss into a pile near a broken water fountain. Which may as well have been a redundant sentence, because the camp was run in Stark’s name instead of his money. He funded the various programs the camp had to offer, not the clogged toilets.

Since Raven had a habit of throwing shit everywhere, Alex dropped her bag on the ground without care or guilt and looked at the infamous 'Squirt' Raven had essentially bragged about for the last two years. 

He was shorter than Alex, with blondish brown hair and blue eyes that gleamed with a maniacal look Alex often associated with Raven. He was dressed in well-worn black shorts and a windbreaker, which looked a lot cooler than the faded shorts and customary tie-dye shirt Alex was forced to wear, that was for sure. 

Behind him, Raven was trying to shepherd a group of teenagers onto a porch for one reason or another, already jubilantly embracing her role as “Dictator.” Alex ignored her in favor of holding his hand out, watching as an easy grin slid onto the kid’s face.

"What's up, I'm Alex, I'm going to be one of your counselors for the next few weeks." The kid hopped in place and nodded, releasing his hand as Alex continued. “If you have any questions or need anything at all, just find someone with a tie-dye shirt and a whistle, we’ll help you out.”

"Pietro, one of the campers responsible for your high blood pressure, if anything my aunt says is true." The kid- Pietro, said, matching the bird Raven was currently flipping him. 

Alex had a feeling he'd like this kid, he seemed a lot like Scotty. 

Speaking of which…

"SCOTT DANIEL SUMMERS, GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THAT TREE NOW, IF IT DOESN'T BREAK YOUR NECK, I WILL!" 

There was a " _No Climbing!"_ sign up for a reason, and Alex _knew_ Scott could read, he just liked to be a little shit to see what he could get away with.

Like now, for instance.

"FUCK YOU, _ALEXANDER NATHANIEL,_ I DO WHAT I WANT." Scott yelled back from above him, then looked afraid when Alex cracked his knuckles and pointed to the ground, hopping to the ground and taking off with a few of his friends.

Alex ran after them, watching as Scott and his friend scampered off the trail and into a cabin for shelter, scaring the people already in there. 

No matter. He'd get them. He had an example to set to the others, after all, and who was he to pass up the opportunity to torment his younger brother?

\---***---

Pietro looked around the camp, barely able to stay in one place for long. Kids desperate to flee their parent's smoothing presence were hiding and making their bids for freedom, while others looked devastated at two months without their family. Everywhere he looked and listened was the sound of laughter and cheerful, spirited conversations, and an impromptu water balloon fight had broken out between several teenagers and their younger siblings, who ran as fast as they could to avoid getting hit. 

One particularly bad (or good, depending on how you looked at it) aim ended up taking out the car mirror of a beat up SUV. A second balloon set the alarm off. Pietro vaguely hoped the poor owner had some outstanding car insurance. 

Several others were setting up canoes by a lake, ignoring the directions of an old lady blowing her whistle frequently. Not even her scary arm gestures pulled much attention to her, and Pietro wondered how long those people had dealt with this nagging old lady to get used to her demon screeches.

No, wait. That was just Raven with dust in her hair.

A few adults carried large containers of food into the biggest building he'd seen so far, which he assumed to be the mess hall. He hoped dinner was soon, he was _starving._

But there was one thing he had to do before he got caught up in all the excitement, walking back to the car and practically climbing inside the open window to give Charles a hug.

"See ya in a few weeks, dad." he said, grinning. Charles hugged him back, patting his shoulder.

"Behave for your Aunt Raven and the other adults here, _please."_ Charles said, most likely recalling all too well some of his more extravagant attempts at 'behaving'. "And call me if you need anything, extra epi-pens or clothes."

Pietro nodded, giving him a mocking salute, patting his pocket where his two-week old cell phone was stashed. He watched as Charles drove away, then turned his attention towards the pile of bags and sighed as he looked for the familiar _Attack on Titan_ and _My Hero Academia_ pins. 

As he found his bag, trapped under several others in the few minutes his back was turned, he tried in vain to lift it out of the pile. Alas, it was as if it was superglued to the ground below, trapped under more weight then all of Pietro's sins combined. And he had a _lot_.

It was times like these when he wished his mutation was super _strength_ and not super _speed_.

A freckled hand reached out and grabbed the bag, sending both boys stumbling into the dirt as it was unexpectedly freed. 

Pietro looked up at his saviors, noticing that they were the three boys Alex had been yelling at a few minutes ago. The tallest of the group was wearing a pair of dark red sunglasses, and the brunette on the ground next to him, Pietro noticed, had dark blue gauntlets on his wrists.

"H-hey man, I'm Peter… uhh, Peter Parker." The brunette- Peter, said. Pietro grabbed his hand and shook it, then the other boy's, who he assumed was Scott. 

"Thanks for freeing my bag… do you have super strength?" Pietro asked, slinging his bag onto his shoulder as Peter nodded enthusiastically.

"Uhh, yeah! Yeah, man… among other things."

"Sweet. I'm Pietro, by the way. Any of you guys play poker?"

"I do," the shortest of the group announced. "I'm Ned. Uhhh… not a mutant, but…" he shrugged, almost casually, but there was a sense of pride in his voice. "Mr. Stark thinks I'm a computer whiz, and Peter's my best friend, so, you know." He beamed. "I got in!"

"I shoot lasers from my eyes." Scott said offhandedly, and without any warning, lowered his red shades and demonstrated… on the lake. 

Alex, unfortunately, saw it, and Pietro found himself running with his new friends, already in trouble and _loving_ it. He even got to show off his own abilities, much to the awe of Scott, Ned, and Peter. It was helpful, in times like this, for hiding in odd places while he waited for the next opportunity for mischief to show itself.

Summer camp was already shaping up to be a _wonderful_ experience. He was going to like it here.

\---***---

Wanda wished she was at camp already. Her day had been _dreadful_ so far.

The flight had been long, and boring, and Janos had managed to sleep through most of it, lucky bastard. But she had been forced to change halfway through after a _very_ rude man had knocked his lasagna onto her shirt.

Now, dressed in a plaid skirt and a matching, stupid button down, she watched the scenery of lush forests and a long, bumpy dirt road that jostled her in her seat pass her by, and when she looked back inside and around the limousine, Janos was there to smile reassuringly at her, easing some of her frustrationa from earlier.

"Don't worry madame, I'm sure camp will be ten _hundred_ times more fun than your flight."

Wanda sighed dramatically, falling back into her seat like "a little Victorian lady", as Uncle Azazel put it. "But Janos, cleaning toilets in my _nightwear_ would be more fun than that flight was."

He laughed, which coaxed a smile out of her. "I'm sure you're not wrong… ah-ha, we're here!"

Wanda jumped up and looked at the window with much more excitement than before, looking up at the huge carved sign welcoming them to _Camp Walden._ Several bright yellow signs pointed towards a site crowded with kids, bearing messages such as: _The Avengers! Turning the kids of today into the superheroes of tomorrow!_ and _The Avengers Summer Camp! Where anything can happen!_

Feeling slightly giddy at the prospect of _eight_ whole weeks without Lorna and her nagging tutors, Wanda began bouncing in her seat, eager to get out and play with the kids. A car alarm went off just as Janos pulled in and parked, adding to the orchestra of noise surrounding them. 

As he had always done for her, Janos opened the door, and Wanda stepped out as one of the assistants Erik had hired brought her bags out, asking a hassled looking blonde where to put the bags.

"This is rather picturesque." Wanda said, looking around the site. Someone dropped a canoe in the lake and jumped in after it, splashing several other people and causing them to shriek.

Janos smiled as she looked back at him and he began listing things off the checklist Papa had written for her. _Honestly,_ he was a little overbearing at times, but nonetheless, she affirmed to Janos she was very well prepared for camp. The fresh deck of cards he handed her with a secret wink was a wonderful gift as well- she had forgotten her own set at home, and had lost a few cards, forcing her to replace them with ones from the _Uno_ deck.

And then, the best and also worse part of the whole affair came, and Janos was holding his hand out, saying "Give me five, old sport." 

And they began what Wanda had dubbed "The Dance". 

Used for hellos, goodbyes, and everything in between, it was something that existed between her and Janos, for he did a different dance with Lorna, and for different reasons. _Lorna_ didn't understand the importance of it, only the entertainment, but Wanda knew.

As they bowed to each other, she leapt forward and hugged him goodbye. "See you in eight weeks, Janos."

"Have fun, old beans." Janos said, patting her on the head. "Call me if you need anything at all, you hear?" Wanda nodded, patting her pocket where her new phone was, and watched him get into the front seat of the limousine. Wanda graciously accepted her bags from the assistant, and looked around curiously at the campsite she would call home for the next two months.

A tall blonde boy was shooting lasers into the lake, and then getting chased by who she assumed to be his brother. Three other boys _also_ ran off with him, and Wanda shook her head. _She_ had much more class than to show off her own abilities like that. Why shoot lasers into a _lake_ anyway?

Looking up and around, observing her surroundings, she was jostled as a blonde woman in a tie-dye shirt and shorts that looked like they had lost a battle with a pair of extraordinarily aggressive scissors bumped into her.

"Oops! Sorry, didn't see ya there, I'm Raven... and your name?" She said, holding up an old clipboard and pen.

"Wanda… Wanda Lehnsherr." She said, in her most professional voice. The lady nodded, and marked her paper, scrawling _Wanda Lehnsherr_ under what looked to be _Pietro Xavier._

"Let's see… uhhh… you're in cabin 8, so… this way!" And without another word, she ran off, leaving Wanda to jog after her in order to catch up, hauling her bags as best as she could. 

The cabin she led her to was near the edge of the woods, with a creaking, open screen door and dirty floorboards, yellowed windows, and half-destroyed screens. A large metal _8_ hung haphazardly by a single nail over the doorway, rusted and dented. Wanda cringed. Her Papa would _never_ let any metal like that come _near_ him.

"Yeahhhh…" Raven said, mistaking Wanda's grimace for that of concern. "We've been meaning to fix that, it's a concussion and a write-up waiting to happen, but.." she clicked her tongue. "I'm not allowed near the hammers… or any work equipment really, so, uhhh…" Looking around, Raven smirked as she latched her sight onto a redhead who was dressed in the same shirt all the counselors wore, a whistle hanging from his wrist instead of his neck as he yelled at a pair of campers who had taken to throwing rocks at one another. 

So uncivilized.

"SEAN!! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, LET THEM KNOCK EACH OTHER OUT IF THEY WANT." Raven yelled, and the boy- Sean- threw his hands up and jogged over, clearly out of breath.

"Hey- _*gasp*-_ Raven! How're- _*gasp*-_ you doing?!" Sean said, hunched over, hands on his knees. He was _loud,_ Wanda decided, in a way that wasn't quite… _normal_. She wondered if that was his mutation.

Raven thunked Sean upside the head with her clipboard impatiently. "Listen, Banshee-"

"Hey!" Sean cried happily, in the middle of massaging a stitch in his side. "You remembered- _*gasp*-_ my nickname!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's not like it's hard to forget." Raven said distractedly. "Listen, I need you to go run and get a hammer and a nail…" she paused and cringed, as if remembering something else. "Uhhh, a couple of nails, actually. I want this number fixed before someone's unconscious or dead at my feet. I don't wanna have to do any more paperwork in the next few weeks than is strictly necessary."

Sean snapped up, gave a sloppy salute, and jogged away, leaving Raven to usher Wanda inside the cabin, where three other girls sat inside, all displaying various powers or prowesses. Wanda could only stare, even though she knew it was probably rude to do so. She hadn’t met any other mutant kids before, besides Lorna, who didn’t count because she was her sister.

The girl nearest to her was tall, wearing a beautiful hairstyle and playing with a bracelet on her wrist, a hologram of a boy glowing above the palm of her hand. She appeared to be leading a spirited conversation with him in a language Wanda didn't understand, but they both looked to be happy, whatever they were talking about. 

The second girl, whose hair was pulled up into a bushy ponytail, was messing with a wrist gauntlet that let her change her suit colors, floating several inches off the ground. A brown leather jacket with Air Force patches was slung on the edge of her bed, and she kept reaching over to pat it.

The third girl was the furthest from the door, and had red hair like Wanda did. She too was floating around the room, taping up a poster for a show Wanda didn't watch as she hummed to herself, apparently lost in her thoughts.

"Alright girls, this is your new cabinmate… uh, Shuri, Monica, Jean, this is Wanda Lehnsherr. Wanda, Shuri, Jean and Monica." Raven nodded to herself, then took a deep breath, flipped to another paper, and resumed speaking.

"O-kaaay, try not to kill each other without adult supervision, and _don't_ burn the cabin down. Dinner is in two hours, in the mess hall, biggest building here, can't miss it, and there's porta-potties scattered around the campgrounds for bathrooms." Raven pointed to one that was across from their cabin through the open door. Wanda made a face, and she wasn’t the only one. Porta-potties were notorious for being _nasty._

"You guys will shower tomorrow, we'll take you to the lockers near the docks for that, and you can brush your teeth and hair in groups in the bathrooms inside the mess hall. You can do whatever you'd like until you hear the dinner bell, and it's pretty much first come, first served." 

Raven looked up, and looked stern. Wanda had a feeling she'd encountered more than one kid who hadn't listened, and she was in no hurry to be that kid. "So don't miss it. If you don't get food, that's on you." 

Wanda looked at the other girls, who in turn looked at her, and they all faced back to Raven and nodded.

"Good!" Raven said, much more enthusiastically. "See you at dinner then, or much sooner, depending on the games you choose." And she skipped out without another word, yelling at a counselor who had tried to drive a golf cart but clearly didn’t know how to operate it.

She seemed to really like yelling.

"So!" Shuri said, jumping on her bed and landing on her knees. Somewhere in the time Raven had entered and left, she had ended her call on the world's coolest phone. "What can _you_ do, ginger number two?"

Jean, ginger number one, tossed her hair in annoyance as she sat next to Monica, and pouted at Shuri, who laughed at her dramatics before focusing on Wanda again.

She grinned and held out her hands, letting them watch as tendrils of red sparked to life across her palms.

Wanda was glad she had decided to go. She liked camp.


	4. Cold Blooded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL, HERE'S A PRESENT
> 
> Here it is, one of my favorite chapters yet! I'm almost halfway through chapter 7 (which is so far the longest chapter of all) as of writing this, so hopefully I'll continue to stay ahead of schedule, we'll see lol
> 
> I hope you all have a great holiday and, if you got a nerf gun, nerf the shit outta your family. You've earned it XD

Dinner was weird as _shit_ , Alex decided.

He didn't know if it had to do with the fact that the first day of camp was _always_ weird, or that someone, somewhere, had fucked up his mom's SUV and booooooy was she going to be pissed, _or_ if it was simply some of the food combos kids these days came up with.

Sean, he decided he could forgive, as he was a stoner and _supposed_ to be an outlier. But _twice,_ he saw kids put deviled eggs in their bowls of beef stew, and one particular crazy kid straight up dunked a tuna fish sandwich into the bowl of fruit punch.

Absolutely _disgusting._

He signed, then jumped as a kid knocked into his shoulder. He had trouble remembering faces when there were so _many_ everywhere, and it was only through name-tags that he knew any of his colleagues.

"Oh, uh, hey there!" He said, holding up a ladleful of halved strawberries. "Want any?" 

"Oh, no thank you," the boy said, backing away and holding his plates away from the bowl, looking warily at the spoon. "I'm allergic. _Deathly_ allergic. Like, 'dead on the ground before the Pokémon theme song is over' dead."

Alex winced. "Sorry about that." 

The boy shrugged, and walked away, and Alex felt a small nudge on his _other_ side, and sometimes really hated the older brother instinct that came with being around a bunch of hungry kids.

"Want any?" He said to the kid distractedly, then looked up as he received a similar answer to the _last_ kid he asked… didn't he?

"Oh, no thank you, I'm terribly allergic I'm afraid." The girl- _was_ it a girl? said. She looked almost _exactly_ like the other kid, and Alex looked to his left, and then back to the girl.

"But weren't you- I though-" damn, he should've gotten more sleep last night, instead of playing video games and packing twenty minutes before he left. "Uhh... never mind. Sorry, uhh.. I get a lot of people mixed up on the first day."

The girl shrugged, and continued picking out her food daintily, carefully avoiding the strawberries.

Alex swore to himself he would try and get some sleep later.

  
  


\---***---

  
  


Pietro liked his new friends.

He especially liked that his new friends would fence with him, even after he beat them in _several_ rounds. 

(So _maybe_ he had an obsession with samurai, and that had led to sword fighting lessons, so he had a leg up here. Could anyone blame him? They were _cool._ )

"And we have our undefeated champion, from Napa Valley, Pietro Xavier!" Raven announced, lifting his arm up in victory as Peter laid on the ground, lifting his mask up to shake Pietro's hand.

"Wow, you're strong." Peter said, as Pietro lifted him up, both wearing matching grins, an inside joke between them already.

Raven lifted her megaphone up, shouting gleefully. "Who's up next? Who dares duel the great Pietro?! C'mon guys, don't be pussies!"

Pietro watched as some of the kids backed away, not wanting to be picked, as a group of girls walked near the field, all holding tennis rackets. One girl, with long red hair, was nudged by her friends onto the small patch of grass near Pietro. _They_ seemed to think their friend could take him on.

Ha. Fat chance.

"I'll do it!" the girl said, taking a helmet from Ned, who stood by the armor rack, suiting up surprisingly quickly, like she had done this before. 

"Alright, alright!" Raven yelled, scribbling on her clipboard as she glanced at the girl's wristband for her name. "Wanda Lehnsherr, from London! Wanda, get your saber and pick a stance, any stance! Let's go!"

Pietro grinned. _Finally,_ a worthy opponent! Their duel would be legendary! He straightened up, assuming one of his favorite poses, as the girl faced him… mirroring his stance.

Eh. Whatever. Maybe she was just a copycat.

He waited for Raven's whistle, and then lunged forward, striking her blade with his own. She was fast- not as fast as him, but fast, and good too. Pietro really _was_ impressed now, as she dodged one of his strikes, leaving the ballpoint of his saber stuck in the totem pole. 

He chased her, much to the amusement of onlookers, down to the hay bales, where she got the higher ground, and knocked his blade clean out of his hand.

Aw man.

"En grande!" She cried cheerfully, in an annoying British accent. Pietro, never one to give up _quite_ so easily, lunged up and grabbed his saber in midair, resuming the duel. The girl, sensing the shift in their fight, pushed back with a vengeance, and cornered him onto a porch, parrying faster and more ruthlessly now. 

Before Pietro knew it, he was knocked backwards with a _manly_ shriek straight into a trough of _freezing_ cold water.

"Oh! I'm sorry," the girl said, reaching her hand out towards him. "Let me help you."

Pietro had no doubt she had knocked him in on _purpose,_ and held out his own hand.

"No, let _me_ help _you._ " He snarled, and tugged. With a yelp of her own, she fell into the water next to him, sputtering.

"What on _earth_ was that for?!" She cried, getting out of the water, Pietro close behind, as Raven blew her whistle annoyingly close to his face. He felt like she did that shit on purpose sometimes.

"We have our winner! New champion- Wanda Lehnsherr from London."

Pietro shoved the girl- Wanda- back a few inches from him. "Why'd you push me in, dipshit?"

Wanda stomped her foot, waving her saber around threateningly. "It's not _my_ fault you can't fence right!" 

"Guys, guys," Raven said, sensing a fight. "Just shake hands and move on, c'mon now."

Pietro huffed, and took his helmet off at the same time Wanda did, shaking his wet hair out of his face. There were a few gasps, and he looked around to see what all the fuss was about.

"What's going on?" He asked. Wanda looked around too, helmet tucked under her arm. Raven however, whistled lowly, gaze flickering between the two of them.

" _Wow_ -za. Don't you two look alike." she remarked, arms loosely crossed. Pietro grimaced, setting his hand on his hip, as Wanda deadpanned towards Raven. Clearly, they were in agreement on _this_ matter.

They were _not_ alike, and Pietro would prove it. Here and now.

"Turn to the left." Pietro said, spinning his helmet in his hand to gesture. He wanted to see for himself how right- or wrong- Raven was. Wanda rolled her eyes and turned to the side, huffing and crossing her arms. Pietro hummed, tapping his chin in thought. "Now do the other side."

Rolling her eyes again, she flipped her long hair and spun around, then turned to face him. Pietro leaned closer as she took a step back, balling her hands into fists. 

He smirked.

"Let's see…" he began, continuing to tap his chin. "Your eyes are… _much_ closer together then mine are, and your ears, well…" he chuckled slightly. "Don't worry, you'll grow into them." 

Behind him, Scott started laughing as Wanda flushed a deep, angry red and touched her ears, but Pietro wasn't done just yet.

"Your teeth are _slightly_ crooked, and your nose, uhhh... I wouldn't worry about it. They have surgeries for that stuff now." 

Wanda took her hand off her nose as she stomped forward to the sound of mocking laughter, glaring with glowing red eyes. "You want to know the _real_ difference between you and I? I have class, and you _don't."_

Oh yeah, like that was a scathing insult. 

Still, Pietro _hated_ when people thought they got the better of him, and took another step forward as the chants of _'fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!'_ started up. "Why, I oughta-" he began, but was swiftly cut off.

"Enough!" Raven said, stepping in between the two of them. "Wanda, Pietro- I... I mean, Pietro, Wanda-" she stopped, humming. "Wow, you really _do_ look alike…" she shook her head. "Anyway, enough arguing. Shake hands and call it good, or I'm chucking you both in the lake."

Wanda frowned, but held her hand out to Pietro, who likewise did the same. He noticed her eyes were still glowing red, and would've felt afraid, or perhaps curious, if he wasn't so pissed off at having to shake the hand of the person who dunked him. Still, he had no doubt that Raven actually _would_ chuck him in a lake, if only to make an example out of him, so he took Wanda's hand in his own.

And unexpectedly, it was _electric_ , shaking each other's hands, in an almost indescribable way, like touching a live wire, or getting burned without the pain.

They both jumped back, grabbing their own hands and scowling. Raven seemed dissatisfied, and picked their hands up to force them back together, shaking them twice. Pietro _swore_ he could feel something race up his arm and spark in his mind, like when Charles used his telethapy on him, and when he looked back into Wanda's eyes, he _knew_ she felt it too.

"There, see?" Raven said, nodding to herself. "You're not gonna catch cooties or anything off one other now… go. I don't know, throw some rocks at each other. Just do it out of my sight."

Pietro felt a few thumps on his back as Scott, Ned and Peter tried to pull him back to the proverbial fencing ring, walking on legs that were hesitant to move away. Just who _was_ this girl anyway? And what was so _special_ about her?

Ugh. And he was supposed to be having _fun_.

  
  


\---***---

  
  


It was night, hours after the fencing duel, and Wanda was having a _blast._

It was very clear that she was the best poker player there- having a dad who could hold a face like the steel he shaped had its advantages, after all- and so far she had collected a fair share of trophy items, such as an _expensive_ tube of lipstick, a postcard from Italy, a box of top-of-the-line coloring pencils, and a real pearl teardrop necklace.

Lorna was going to be _so_ jealous.

All the kids around her whooped as she made another cool _75.89$_ after a particularly sad round, and Monica, who taken it upon herself to be the announcer of the game night via a cleverly snatched megaphone, gleefully called out for others to play against Wanda, but no one dared to come forward.

That was, until someone new walked in.

Wearing aviators, a blue varsity jacket, and rings on at least six of his fingers, Pietro Xavier stepped into her sight, swinging a sock filled with cash, loose change, and other goodies Wanda _itched_ to get her hands on. The cabin fell silent and the crowd parted for Pietro, who plopped himself down all too casually in front of her.

"Lehnsherr," he greeted, taking the sunglasses off his eyes and pushing them back to rest in his hair, which had been pulled back into a half ponytail. He was, apparently, under the impression he looked cool.

Wanda immediately thought him stupid. Who the _fuck_ wore sunglasses _inside_ at 11:36pm?

No matter. She had dealt with _far_ more arrogant boys than the likes of _him._

"Xavier," she shot back, scooting back on the crappy camp mattress and showing him the pot of riches she had accumulated- and what a collection it was. 

She could see he wanted it, but he didn't know her. If he did, he would know that she _never_ shared.

"So, I hear this is the place to be tonight, and you're the one to beat." Pietro said, leaning back into the fold-up chair and dumping about four dollars of quarters into the center of the mattress. "So, how about a rematch of sorts?"

"What, me kicking your butt once earlier wasn't enough?" Wanda said, much to the amusement of the onlookers, doing her best imitation of her Papa's shark grin. Judging from the way Pietro shifted in his seat, she was getting pretty close to his level of scary.

Excellent.

Pietro shrugged off his uneasiness, pulling a pocket knife out of his jacket and twirling it between his fingers. "Nah. I'm just here to knock you down a few pedestals, princess."

Wanda straightened up, lifting her chin at him. "Well then," she said, gathering the cards up and being much more showy than usual as she shuffled them, sparks of red flying from in between her own fingertips. "Shall we play a game?"

Pietro grinned, pausing in his knife game to sit up again, looking straight into her eyes. "We _shall._ "

And so it began.

Shuri, who Wanda had discovered, was a technical genius, and the pointers she gave, whispered in her ear, were invaluable, or the ones she could hear anyway. Jean kept giggling distractingly one of the boys in Pietro's own gang, but that was alright. Wanda was sure she was going to win, distractions or no.

She was so sure, she wouldn't even use her powers.

"Hey Lehnsherr," Pietro said, blowing an obnoxious bubble with some gum he had pulled out of his pocket some time ago. "Let's say you and I make this game a little more… _interesting._ "

"And what do you propose, _Xavier?_ " Wanda said, throwing in another five pounds into the pot. Pietro smirked, a look that seemed almost fixed onto his face, as he threw in five dollars of his own money.

"Loser jumps in the lake." he said, waving his hand of cards at her.

"Deal." she said, mimicking his relaxed posture. She found it to be… surprisingly easy to do so.

"Ah-ah," Pietro taunted, wagging a finger, not done with whatever punishment he had cooked up. "Loser jumps into the lake… _butt. Naked."_

The kids in the cabin started laughing, nudging each other and whispering. Just as she was placing bets with Pietro, kids were placing bets on who would win this particularly difficult game. If they had any brains, they were getting on _her_.

"Deal." Wanda repeated, humming. "Though I suppose I will _allow_ you the grace of a towel, if only to spare the embarrassment you might have in front of the ladies here."

Shuri laughed so hard she fell after the bed, and Pietro, for the first time, looked somewhat angry.

Score.

Twenty minutes later, they decided to end the game,and the tension in the room could've been cut with a chainsaw. Shuri looked almost as proud as Wanda felt, spreading her hand across the mattress for all to see.

"A straight… in _diamonds."_ she fiddled with her hair, humming as if she was _bored._ "Your go, Xavier."

"In _your_ honor," he began, in a horribly botched accent, still smirking. "A royal flush." He laid his cards out on the mattress, for all to see, and sure enough, there it was. The winning hand.

And in _spades_ too, the little shit.

Wanda felt her heart sink, and was glad, at least, for the towel.

\---***---

Pietro saw Peter smack Scott upside the head front the corner of his eye when he wolf-whistled at Wanda, who, true to her word, came out in a towel. Shuri and Jean looked sympathetic, and Monica was having _way_ too much fun with Raven's stolen megaphone, waving it around like a maniac. 

Her jacket was cool though, so Pietro supposed he wouldn't snitch. Yet.

Wanda walked proudly to the edge of the dock, avoiding the eyes of everyone, yet there was a sense of apprehension in her posture, and for a brief moment, Pietro found himself _concerned_ for her. What if he had pushed it too far? What if this was a bad idea? What if she couldn't _swim?_

And where the fuck were these thoughts _coming_ from?!

He was so concerned over whether or not she'd be okay, he didn't even notice that she had jumped into the water until his shoes got splashed and he was being tugged back towards the beach.

"C'mon, _c'mon_ dude, let's take her clothes!" Scott said, not quite whispering but not quite shouting either. Scott rushed to grab her shirt and jacket, and Pietro grabbed her pants.

They left her clothes at the door of her cabin. And her shoes on the log. They weren't _total_ assholes, after all, they just wanted to teach her a lesson about arrogance and have some more fun before they turned in for the night.

But it was the sound of Raven's confused shouting as she found her megaphone on a kayak at one in the morning was the icing on the cake of Pietro's night.

"IT'S BEEN HERE ALL THIS FUCKING _TIME?!_ ARE YOU _SHITTING_ ME. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK."

Yup. 

Icing. Cake. Yummy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shredded my mouth eating sour patch kids as I checked over this and I feel like I should warn you bout the dangers of gluttony but we all know I'm just gonna continue eating candy and I don't like being a hypocrite sooooo....
> 
> go fucking hOGWILD with your candy. what have you got to lose? (besides feeling in your mouth)


	5. This Means War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to the big reveal, folks!
> 
> Honestly, I was gonna put this up earlier today, but I got carried away while talking to a close friend of my over Discord, and one thing lead to another and... I'm writing another fic. (oops)
> 
> Don't worry though, I'm still working on this too, and I'm about... almost two-thirds of the way done with it, which is a relief. I just need to watch the rest of the movie and type all the good shit out, and this fic will be finished no prob. I might even do bi-weekly updates once I've got the whole thing finished, as a treat for y'all :)

Wanda was  _ fuming  _ the whole night, so furious she could hardly sleep, instead concocting various schemes to get back at that  _ horrible _ group of boys. 

Not only had she nearly been caught starkers by one of the scariest people at camp, but those  _ boys  _ had the audacity to steal her clothes and leave her in that position in the first place! And here  _ she _ was, thinking they had a little more honor than that.

Well. Her Papa didn't say she was one of the strongest mutants he knew for nothing. 

Even her cabin mates looked impressed when she was finished, clapping her on the back and whooping as they watched her  _ truly  _ display the full effects of her abilities, instead of just little tricks here and there for show.

(The flag on top of the cabin was the icing on the cake, in Wanda's opinion.)

(Although she did feel bad, in a way she couldn't explain, that she put Pietro's bed up there. Not that she'd  _ say _ anything on that, of course.)

\---***---

Peter carried Pietro up to their cabin, running ahead of Ned and Scott by a few feet and then stopping every so often to make sure they were still following close behind. Pietro didn't mind though, he just thought it was nice to get off his feet for a bit.

"-and then, Mr. Stark was like 'nice work, kid.' and flew off! How  _ cool  _ is that?"

"Pretty cool," Pietro agreed, patting Peter's head. Ned was hanging off every word Peter spoke, and it didn't take a genius to tell they were close, which Pietro thought was nice.

" _ Ugggggh… _ " he sighed, as the now familiar path to their cabin came into sight. "I'm gonna sleep for the next… hundred years. No. Make that a hundred and  _ one _ years."

"I don't think that's gonna be possible, babe." Scott said, pointing at their roof and patting Pietro's shoulder in sympathy. "Look."

"Holy shit." Ned squeaked, and Pietro was so mad he was almost impressed.

There, up on the cabin roof, was all of their beds, and a flag waving in the breeze.

A  _ British  _ flag.

It didn't take a genius to figure out who had done this, and it didn't take another, separate genius to guess what Pietro and his friends were gonna do about it.

"Well boys," Pietro said, looking at each of their faces. "Whaddya say we get back at them, huh?"

He was immediately met with several grins and various sounds of agreement.  And so it began.

Scott, who was fourteen, a seasoned camper  _ and  _ had an older brother working as a counselor, had invaluable knowledge about the campsite and where many useful items could be found. Along with Peter's super strength and Ned's surprising savviness with picking locks, they managed to collect a whole accoutrement of supplies that would allow them to strike back, and strike back  _ hard. _

And the plan and heist went a little something like this.

After dinner, instead of joining in for campfire songs, the four of them snuck back into their cabins, using a duffle bag and a clever diversion tactic involving several snappers and an oddly friendly squirrel to fill up water balloons in the sink of the boys bathroom. 

It took a surprisingly  _ long  _ amount of time, as they had all severely underestimated how many other people would want balloons and want to know what they were  _ for,  _ and there was the underlying fear that they might get caught.

If worse came to worse though, they could sacrifice a few balloons and make for the literal hills. Scott, they had found out, had a  _ wicked  _ arm.

After Peter luged the duffle back by scaling the building and swinging in the trees like a monkey, they filled two ten gallon buckets with chocolate sauce from the kitchens that was 'accidentally' left out, and two more buckets with tar from the supply shed. Ned was extremely happy to show off his lock picking skills, and Pietro made a mental note to ask him to show him some tricks later. 

The feathers, of course, were gathered from pillows left out on porches by careless campers and attendants alike, and yarn was acquired from an elderly woman's knitting basket.

She never even saw Peter's puppy eyes coming, poor lady.

And although they found no honey in the kitchens, they found it in Peter's bag of snacks that his Aunt had packed for him, and it was unanimously agreed upon that it was chosen for the main activity of the night.

It was a noble death for a condiment. There was no better sacrifice than that of revenge, after all.

Scott, of course, managed to pull off the biggest part of the heist- stealing shaving cream from his older brother, Alex.

While he talked to him. In plain sight. Pietro knew Scott had balls, but  _ Jesus Christ _ .

And after that, they waited.

Waited until the girls had returned, listening to them giggling for what felt like  _ hours _ (and seriously,  _ why _ did they giggle so much?) underneath the floor of the cabin. 

Waited until they fell asleep, each of them clutching a 'weapon' of their choice. Ned kept fiddling with his flashlight until Pietro threatened to throw it in the lake, afraid the light would blow their cover, but luckily, no one saw or heard them.

So the night, by all accounts, was going great.

The door was hardly locked, just a latch they had to push up, and they made great use of the fact that Peter could walk on the walls and ceiling. Pietro, of course, was extremely glad for his super speed, because there was no  _ way _ they could've carried everything there at once  _ and  _ still have room to hide under the cabin.

(So they brought a lot of stuff. Their  _ beds _ were on a  _ roof. _ )

"Hold still," he hissed, climbing onto Scott's shoulders as the older teen held his ankles for balance. It was taking more thumbtacks then he had originally thought to pin all the yarn in place, but hey, if they ran out, they could always just snag some off the corkboard near the entrance of the camp.

Peter, meanwhile, could make a  _ killing  _ doing horror movies just off the way he crawled on the ceiling. Pietro almost  _ hoped  _ the girls would wake up now instead of in a few hours, if only to see this. It made him wish for his camera.

Currently, if he looked down, he looked into the face of one (sleeping) Wanda Lehnsherr. Currently, he was trying  _ not  _ to feel concerned about the furrow in her brow as she slept.

(Really. He was.)

"Aaaaaaaand… done!" he whispered, tapping Scott's head to be let down. Ned waited until they had backed up to pour some of the goopy tar onto the floor. Very,  _ very _ slowly, they set up the rest of the traps, snuck out, and went to bed.

On the roof, of course. Duh. There was no  _ way  _ one of them was going to go crying to an adult about this. They were  _ men, _ and men braved through any situation they came across, no matter what it was.

(It was, strangely enough, one of the best nights of sleep Pietro had ever gotten. He almost wanted to  _ thank _ Wanda for putting his bed up. Not that he'd  _ say _ that, of course.)

\---***---

When Wanda woke up, it was to a bright sun streaming light at a perfect angle, to the birds chirping sweetly in the trees, to a trumpet playing faintly from far off, and to yarn strung up everywhere.

Wait.

Wanda sat up, looking around in alarm. "Shuri…" she whispered, then spoke louder, trying to get her friends attention. "Shuri! Monica! Jean! Wake up!"

The scene- which would've been comical in a movie, or perhaps on someone  _ else,  _ was a total  _ nightmare  _ for Wanda. Her arms were covered in honey, Shuri had chocolate sauce on her sheets, and Monica was wearing an afro and overalls made out of shaving cream. Several of the other girls in the cabin had fake bugs on their faces, and Jean's hair had been gelled into ugly green spikes.

It was absolutely  _ disgusting. _

Monica started swiping at the cream on her, yelling in disgust, and some of the other girls joined in, not that they could be blamed, of course. Wanda tried to get out of bed, to get an adult or  _ someone _ to help with this literally sticky situation, and almost immediately stepped into a puddle of thick, bitter smelling tar. Angry, she swiped at the yarn in front of her face, trying to move forward despite the obstacles in her way.

Only for another problem to arise.

One of the strands of yarn, it had seemed, was a tripwire to a box of water balloons up on a shelf, and Wanda found herself thanking her quick reflexes as she dodged them all.

"Hah!" she whispered victoriously. "You didn't get  _ me! _ "

Immediately though, as it tended to do, the universe  _ had _ to prove her wrong.

"Ughhh!" she yelled as she was  _ soaked _ from head to toe, and tried to stomp her foot, but only succeeded in getting more tar on her. "This is  _ revolting!" _

\---***---

Pietro watched as the girls started waking up, hand covering his mouth to hide his snickers. Watching them navigate the minefield of items was truly a sight to behold. 

When he saw prissy Wanda stomp her foot and cry out ' _ Ughhh! This is  _ **_revolting!_ ** ' after getting hit with the biggest balloon of all, Pietro could only laugh harder, and put on his best Elvis impersonation for the other boys.

"Thank you, thank you very much." He crowed, and the boys laughed even more, Ned wiping tears from his eyes and Scott clutching his stomach. This was, by  _ far,  _ one of the best pranks Pietro had ever pulled off, and that included filling his principal's car up with frogs.

"Goooooood morning campers!" Raven cried as she passed them at the window. They all turned to wave at her cheerfully, wide smiles on all of their faces. 

"Good morning, Raven!" They choursed, turning back to the window to watch the chaos unfold.

Then, Pietro realized.

" _ Raven?!"  _ he cried, as she turned on her megaphone (seriously, she loved that as much as she loved Hank) and yelled out into the general vicinity.

"Surprise inspection today, folks!" she said, overly cheerful for seven twenty-two in the morning. Someone had let her have coffee, and beside her, Alex looked as dead as Pietro felt.

"Cabin number…" she paused, looked at her clipboard, then made a beeline for the nearest cabin. "CABIN EIGHT FOLKS, CABIN EIGHT."

"I fucking hate my life." Alex muttered under his breath, looking like death warmed over, and Pietro had to agree with him as he rushed forward to block the door.

"Don't go in there!" he said, too quickly to be anything  _ but  _ suspicious. Raven narrowed her eyes at him, and Pietro gave a nervous smile.

"And why can't I go inside, kiddo? You got five seconds on the clock. Starting… now."

"Someone threw up in there." Scott said from behind him, and Pietro nodded hastily in agreement.

"Mhmm. Real nasty stuff. It got on the walls, the floor… it's a total mess in there."

"Yes, it  _ is  _ a total mess in here." A sickly sweet, familiar voice said from behind him, and oh  _ man _ , he was screwed harder than a porn star right now. "Would you mind coming inside to help us, please?"

"Awww, sure thing kiddo." Raven said, and huh, she  _ could  _ sound like a decent person. "Pietro, move your ass. Now."

Or not.

Raven huffed, and, ignoring Pietro's pleas, shoved him to the side and yanked the door open, walking inside with Alex hot on her tail.

Pietro screwed up his eyes, and didn't look, wishing desperately for a time machine to reverse the previous night. 

No, he did not look at the damages, or how they went down. But he could take an educated guess on what had happened.

Peter placed a water balloon over the door, after all.

And buckets of chocolate sauce in the rafters.

And… loose feathers on the ceiling fan.

(Thought that last one, admittedly, had been Pietro's idea.)

He only forced himself to look once it had fallen silent, and then he wished he didn't, because Raven's eyes were no longer brown, but gold. And when they were gold, Pietro was a dead, dead man.

_ Fuck. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, wouldn't wanna be Pietro right now. Though I do miss camping and all the crazy shit that came along with it, like eating a year old tootsie roll wrapped in a worm to win truth or dare, or wrapping my camp counsolers up in newspaper and packing tape. Good times, gooood times.
> 
> I hope you guys are staying safe, and tune in next Monday for the next update!


	6. Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE'S THE BIG ONE FOLKS! The one y'all have been waiting for. Currently, I'm up to eight chapters, probably nine by next Monday, so I'm doing very nicely, if I do say so myself. I planned on getting this out earlier today but I've been, as the youth say, heeeeeeeeeella busy. 
> 
> With that said... enjoy :)

Wanda _hated_ hiking.

They had decided to take every kid from every cabin, have them line up in groups of three, and marched them _all_ up a trail they hadn't gone on before in the scant three days they had been at camp. 

For _forty minutes._

All while Pietro and Wanda carried their bags with them, though they were the only kids forced to. Everyone else had gotten off scot-free, for whatever reason, and only two of them were left to blame for the mess.

Wanda was sure she'd never hate someone as much as she hated Pietro Xavier. Not even Lorna could come close to the type of raw wrath she held in her mind for the person who had, essentially, _tarred_ _and feathered_ her and her friends, and then got her thrown out of her cabin! She hadn't even _done_ anything, besides put their beds on a roof. And dunk him in a pool of water. And tried to start a few rumors about him here and there.

Okay. So _maybe_ she did something. That didn't mean she deserved to be forced to hike to a different cabin just because she had been one of _many_ involved with the events of the past few days!

Pietro, meanwhile, seemed just as miserable as she felt, which was her only consolation. He kept trying to talk to Raven, maybe to appease to her, but she repeatedly shot him down.

Literally. She had a nerf gun in her shorts and was not afraid to use it.

Finally, they stopped in front of an old cabin on stilts, with about twenty steps leading up to the stairs alone.

"CAMPERS," Raven yelled, over the hoards of kids. "YOU MAY RESUME YOUR DAYTIME ACTIVITIES."

Behind her, there was cheering, and a stampede of kids ran back to the main grounds of the camp.

Wanda and Pietro shared a look, and tried to make a run for it as well. Unfortunately, Raven caught them by the shoulders, and pointed to the cabin.

"Get. Marching." she said, her tone final, as Alex pointed up the stairs. They were both, it seemed, still pissed about the events of two hours.

And so, resigned, they marched.

\---***---

There was a storm, later that day. Kids ran from the docks in swimsuits and shorts, taking shelter wherever they could as the wind picked up and the rain came down. Even as the night fell, it raged on, and Pietro felt his temper shoot up as high as the wind outside his window as he just tried to _sleep._

But _noooo._ A very certain _someone,_ not naming any names, _had_ to keep the light on for 'journaling' or whatever it was that girls did with their fancy books. Annoyed, and _far_ past fed up, Pietro reached up, and turned the light off.

Wanda glared at him with the same red eyes she had on the first day, during their first fight, and pointedly flipped the switch back _on._

Pietro reached up, not one to be bested _again,_ and turned it back off. 

Wanda turned it on.

Pietro turned it _off_.

Wanda turned it _on._

Each switch passed between them became more and more aggressive, until Pietro crawled under his bed for relief from the dull light and wondered how the fuck the lightbulb simply just didn't _explode_ from the abuse they were putting it through. At least then it'd be dark and Wanda would be forced to go the fuck to _sleep._

The next day, it was _still_ storming, and Pietro sighed to himself as he tacked up the last of his pictures with the spare thumbtacks he had swiped. He missed two nights ago, when he was having fun with his friends, instead of now, where he was trapped inside a cabin far away from anyone else with a stuck-up _snob_. 

She was quiet now, but it might've also been because Pietro had stopped trying to goad her after she slapped him in the chest with her journal, which was how he found out the hard way it was not, in fact, a paperback. It was a good choice for a weapon however, and a good reminder for Pietro to stay on _his_ side of the cabin.

The window he slept next to, which was open due to a lack of air conditioning, at least brought in cool air. The first few nights at camp were hot and sticky, and the storm, if it hadn't been so bothersome, may have actually been welcome.

Still. Pietro wanted to _do_ something. He was _bored_ , and it was never a good thing when he was bored. Bored Pietro tended to cause trouble, which led to… _unsavory_ encounters. Which meant that, unless he wanted Raven to call up Charles and be sent _home,_ he'd have to be good and keep his nose out of places it shouldn't be.

 _Uggggggggh._ That was impossible. He'd either find some trouble or make it himself, he wasn't fussed. 

Maybe going back home _wouldn't_ be so bad, as long as he could get away from his Crazy Roomate from Hell.

Speaking of which, while _he_ was absolutely, positively, _suffering_ from cabin fever, Wanda, on the other hand, was perfectly content to sit inside. Maybe she actually _liked_ the rain, weirdo that she was. All she had done in the past few hours was draw and write in her stupid journal/weapon, being surprisingly quiet for someone who was normally such a loudmouth shit-talker. 

Occasionally, she would text on her phone, (which looked brand new, and, Pietro assumed, she probably had a dozen more of back home, rich brat) but other than that, the experience of being forced to share a cabin with Pietro had left her less hostile than before. 

Maybe she fought with him because she had been homesick. Or maybe her anger was her way of dealing with new situations- Lord only knew how Pietro could get that way sometimes.

Now though, with all of his pictures up, he flopped face first onto his bed, hoping to get a nap in while the storm still raged on, or maybe play some card games- but the sound of fluttering papers and screaming wind broke through his thoughts, and he watched, annoyed at his shitty, shitty luck as his posters and magazine covers were torn from the wall and strewn on the floor. In a panic, he leapt up, trying to force the jammed window shut, wishing Peter was here. He could probably force it closed, no problem.

"Oh!" Wanda cried from behind him, and for a moment, Pietro wondered if she was going to get mad at him for the mess, which he did _not_ have the energy to deal with. 

Instead, however, he found her running up to help close the window with him, pushing on the glass as he pulled on the wooden frame. "Oh dear, it's jammed."

Pietro grunted in acknowledgment at her _astute_ observation, but, somehow, they managed to get the window shut, thank Christ. 

He expected to go back to her bed as he crouched down and started to pick his papers up, but she surprised him further by helping him pick up his things, being careful with handing them over. 

Huh. Maybe she wasn't all that snobbish after all.

"Anything ruined?" she asked in a small voice, and Pietro was disappointed to see his poster of early 2000's Leonardo DiCaprio was. He waved it sadly, looking at the now crinkled face of one of the hottest men around. "Just this… old poster of Leonardo DiCaprio."

"Who?" Wanda asked, tilting her head to study the picture curiously. Pietro found himself laughing.

"You don't know who Leonardo DiCaprio is? … Just how far away from here do you live?"

"Oh, about… three thousand miles, give or take." Wanda said, shrugging, handing over more posters to him as he began putting them back up over his bed. "What about you?"

"Uhhh.. about the same, actually." Pietro replied, scratching his head as he thought about a new placement for dear old DiCaprio. "We were staying at my dad's old mansion for a few weeks, just for convenience since most hotels aren't all that wheelchair friendly and we all wanted a change of scenery, but I have to fly back to California when camp is over, because that's where I _really_ live... and that's on the other side of the country."

"Oh wow." Wanda said. "What does your house look like?"

Pietro smiled to himself, and picked up an old photograph off the floor. "It looks like this… we built it when I was little, and Dad used his doctorate in genetics to build and cultivate one of the best vineyards in the world… his wine is always in high demand, which I think is pretty cool."

"Is that him?" Wanda asked, gently touching the part of the photograph where his dad's back was faced to the camera.

"Oh yeah," Pietro said, handing over the photograph for her to look at better. "Dad didn't know I was taking the photo, or else he would've turned around, I think."

Wanda smiled to herself as she looked at the house one last time, then gave the photo back to Pietro, who pinned it over the light switch.

"What about you?" he asked into the growing, yawning silence, back turned as he pinned his pictures on the wall again. "What's your dad like?"

"My Papa is an architect." Wanda said proudly. "He uses his mutation to make some of the strongest and most beautiful buildings around. He rebuilt most of a mansion for the president of Chile after it took damage from an earthquake last year."

"That's cool." Pietro said, finally putting the last picture back up and opening his bag. Now that they weren't being so… hostile to each, Pietro was _slightly_ more willing to share his snacks. "Hey, d'you want any Oreos?"

"Ohh, yes please." Wanda said, hopping onto her bed and opening her own bag to pull out a small jar with a familiar red cap. "But see, I like eating them with peanut butter." 

Pietro felt a smile forming on his face as he held up a jar that was nearly identical to Wanda's, except it was blue. "Oh my _god,_ me too!"

Wanda laughed victoriously. "I knew I wasn't the only one! Everyone else thinks it's so weird, or gross-"

"-But they never even try it!" Pietro said, finishing her sentence. She didn't even look mad at him for it, like most people did, instead, she was nodding in agreement.

"Exactly! My Papa thinks it's just a teenager thing, he tells my Uncle Azazel that-"

"Wait, you're a teenager?" Pietro interrupted, Oreo in hand. "Huh. I thought you were my age."

"Oh, well…" Wanda flushed. "I'm not a teenager yet… not until October eleventh. At ten fifty-two am on that day, to be precise."

Pietro grinned. "No shit?! I'm turning thirteen on October eleventh too! Only… I was born before you." He smiled wider, boasting slightly.. "I was born at ten _forty_ am. I'm twelve minutes older than you."

Wanda looked amazed. "What a strange coincidence." she said quietly, eating an Oreo- covered in peanut butter, of course. "What _are_ the odds of that?"

Pietro shrugged. "Beats me. Math's not my strong suit."

Wanda giggled. "It's not mine either! Though…" she had a slightly faraway look in her eyes. "I'm told it was my mother's. She was extraordinary with numbers, according to my papa."

"Was?" Pietro echoed. "She not around anymore?"

Wanda shook her head, touching a chain on her neck- a gold one, just like Pietro had. "No, she's not," she said softly. "She left when I was very young, and so did..." she got quiet for a moment, before continuing. "so did my- my other dad. This locket… I'm told it's the only thing she left for me."

"My mom left me with only a locket too," Pietro confessed, feeling more and more weirded out by the minute as he showed his own locket to her, a small circle with the letter _P_ on it. The only difference between his and Wanda's locket, he noticed as they compared them, was the letter, as hers held a _W_. 

Other than that, they were virtually identical, even down to the nick on the left hand side.

Just who _was_ this girl anyway? 

"My uh… mom left when I was born, and my dad- I mean, my _other_ dad- left when I was like ten months, so now I just… live with my dad and his sister and her-not-a-boyfriend boyfriend." He finished after they had compared necklaces. He tucked his back under his shirt, head spinning.

This was so. Fucking. _Weird._

Luckily for Pietro however, a distraction from the incredibly bizarre conversation came in the form of the storm suddenly letting up, and while the sky was still grey, the rain had stopped entirely. He could even hear birds chirping again, and he made for the door, whooping. 

Jesus _Christ_ this day was weird. He needed some food to help think this over. "Hey, wanna go get popsicles?"

Wanda followed him outside, looking stunned. " _How_ can you think about your stomach at a time like this?!"

"At a time like _what?"_ Pietro said, confused at both her and the return of that worrying feeling he had come and gone lately. "Look, are you sure you don't want some lemonade or something? I can be back in a jif, Scout's honor."

Wanda walked back inside, talking a mile a minute, and Pietro could only follow, curious to see what she had to say.

"Don't you _see?"_ she was saying, gesturing with her hands, which were sparking again. " _You_ have a mother who ran away when you were born, and so did I. _You_ have a dad who divorced his husband when you were ten months old, and so do _I!_ We even have the same lockets!"

She stopped, and huffed sadly. "Of course… _you_ probably have some decent pictures of your dad, I just have this- this crumpled old thing that's torn right down the middle!-"

Pietro rushed over to his truck when he heard that, feeling his blood pounding in his ears as he looked for the picture he had kept safe in his bag. 

The one he hadn't pulled out yet, to keep it safe. It was, after all, already torn.

"What _are_ you rummaging in your trunk for?" Wanda cried, watching closely, directly behind him as he threw his things onto the floor without care, looking for the answer to a question he didn't know how to ask. He didn't even know _why_ he wanted to know so badly, but this was all coming up to something stranger than he could ever imagine. 

Several heart pounding moments later, Pietro _finally_ found the photo, and took a deep breath as he spun around to face her.

"I- I only have one photo of my dad too," he said quietly, and Wanda's eyes widened in shock as she looked at the picture clutched in his arms.

"Torn… right… down the middle?" she asked meekly, and Pietro could only nod.

"Right-… right down the middle." he confirmed in a shaky voice, watching in turn as Wanda walked over to the desk, pulling out a yellow, rusted tin, and moving scraps of paper and hair ties aside to reveal a torn photo that he couldn't quite see yet. Pietro wondered if it was just the situation, or if he could _actually_ feel the nervousness bleeding off of her as she walked back to him.

"On three?" she asked, and he nodded, holding his photo out slowly.

"One-"

"Two…"

"Three!"

The last word was spoken together, and Pietro _swore_ time slowed down as they joined the two halves together.

To form one, whole picture. 

There was no doubt about it, not with how the background matched up, or how the jagged rip line fit together _perfectly…_ it was one photo, torn in two and joined back together again.

If asked to describe the stop in time as Pietro could only stare and stare, he would say it was different from how he experienced time when he was running. As if there was a pause, as if things weren't quite _right_ before, and then it was fixed, and things were back to how they _should_ be.

He looked at the photo, whole for the first time in his life, and saw his dad staring at his _father._ The man he had only seen in this one, small photo.

"That's my dad." Wanda said, near tears, looking at the half Pietro held, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from the younger version of his own dad clutched in her shaking hand.

"That's _my_ dad," he said, blinking quickly, and Wanda finally looked up as he continued. "Which means… we're- we're like… _siblings_."

"Pietro," Wanda said, tears finally falling, even as a wide grin split her face. "We share the same birthday… we're like _twins."_

Pietro wondered, in that moment, if it was possible to genuinely explode from happiness.

Even though they were the same height, he didn't hesitate to pick Wanda up and spin her around the room, laughing in joy and amazement. Instead of being mad, she just laughed along with him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Is it weird," she said, wiping the tears off her cheeks once he had set her down. "That I've always wanted an older sibling?"

Pietro chuckled, then hugged her again, just because he could, because she was his _sister._ "Not unless it's weird that I've always wanted a _younger_ sibling."

Wanda laughed again, trying to wipe his own tears away with the sleeve of her sweater- he hadn't even noticed them falling. "Maybe it was our brains trying to tell us someone was missing from our lives. Someone important."

Pietro shrugged, unwilling to push her hands away as he smiled and smiled and _smiled_. 

He had a _sister._ A _twin_ sister. How _cool_ was that?

There was really only one way to celebrate something like this, or only one way _Pietro_ would celebrate something like this as he agreed with her. "You may be right…" he grinned wider. "C'mon, let's go get some treats from the mess hall to commemorate this… well, whatever this is!"

"You and your food!" Wanda said, laughing. She looked at him curiously as he crouched in front of her. "Are… you offering to carry me?"

"Yup!" Pietro said cheerfully. "You _gotta_ see what it's like when I run. Trust me, it's faster and _way_ more fun this way."

After that, she didn't need much more convincing, and he ran down to the mess hall, carrying his sister on his back, the two of them laughing together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) And that's Act 1 out of the way folks! Next chapter- high jinks. Many, many high jinks. If you think the pranks were bad, well... Wanda and Pietro on the same team are even worse XD
> 
> As always, I hope you guys have a wonderful day. Be sure to treat yourself, maybe to a brownie. Or a hot bubble bath. Whatever your little fanfic reading heart desires


	7. Plotting (Gone Right)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO HOW ABOUT THIS NEW SEASON OF EARTH HUH? SHOW WRITERS REALLY WENT HARD FOR THE DRAMA THIS YEAR.
> 
> Anyhooooooow... new chapter! Again. Maximoff Monday, yo
> 
> This chapter is skewed a little more towards dialogue but I hope you guys don't mind. I've been pretty busy this week, but hopefully I'll have this whole fic finished by February or March. Honestly, I've hit a small block but I'm hoping to overcome it soon.  
> And now... enjoy

Wanda faced Pietro in the darkness, giggling at a story he was telling. They were both still giddy from the realization that they were _twins,_ and had unanimously agreed to push their beds together that night, swapping stories well past any normal bedtime they would've had back at their respective homes. The once torn picture had been pinned up above their heads, and they kept reaching up to touch it in amazement.

Sometimes, truth was stranger than fiction, and a _lot_ more dramatic than one would expect.

"Wait," Pietro said, giggling, then taking a deep breath, shooting up from bed. "Wait. I have an idea."

Wanda rolled onto her stomach and looked up at him, holding face in her hands. "What kind of idea?"

" _You've_ never met Dad, and I'm _dying_ to meet Papa." Pietro said quickly, gesturing to the photo. "So… what if we switched places?"

Wanda sighed. "Are you serious?" she asked, but one look at his face told her that yes, yes he _was_ serious about this. "Ummm, problem?"

"Ummm, no problem?" Pietro joked, matching her tone. "It'll work, we can pull it off, we're twins Wanda! We can do anything!"

Wanda sat up, sighing again. "You're missing the obvious, Pietro. Not only do we look _nothing_ alike, but we're not even the same gender! Are you going to wear dresses and skirts the whole time you're in London with Papa?"

Pietro shrugged. "I can, and besides, _you_ told me you don't even wear dresses and skirts all that often. You said you wear suits instead."

Wanda hesitated. "That _is_ true…" she admitted. "But we still don't look alike."

Pietro grinned, pulling his hair back and mimicking her accent, surprisingly good at it now that he wasn't making fun of her. "You want to know the _real_ difference between you and I? _I_ have class, and _you_ don't."

Wanda huffed, turning away from him to try and hide her smile. Pietro was undeterred, however, and grabbed her arm, shaking her gently.

"C'mon Wanda, _please?_ I know you wanna do this too."

"Well…" she did, he wasn't wrong about that. "The problem is… if we switch places, eventually, we'll have to switch back."

As if reading her mind, Pietro bounced up, excited. "I know! And if we have to switch _back-"_

"- Then our dads will be forced to meet up again to get the right kid back!" Wanda finished, now as excited as Pietro was, flopping back onto her pillow at the same time he did. "Pietro, you're a _genius._ "

"Thank you." He said giggling as she did.

And so, it began.

The next morning, they used all of Wanda's drawing supplies and every photo they had brought for reference as they did their best to imitate each other. In less than forty-eight hours, they went from hating each other's guts to being able to finish sentences and trains of thought as if they had been doing it all their lives.

And they _loved_ it.

They stole art supplies together, ate at the same table (not that they had much choice on that matter) and slept with their beds close. Everything they did, they did as a unit, as if they were one person instead of two, and the more time they spent together, the more Wanda learned about her brother.

Pietro, she noticed, was funny in a way that perfectly complemented her more serious ways. Being with him, holding conversations and swapping life stories felt as simple as _breathing,_ and Wanda wondered how she had managed to go her entire life without this person, without her _brother,_ by her side.

And the more they talked, the more intricate their plan became, and the closer they got too.

Pietro had the _brilliant_ idea of drawing each other's house layouts and yards, so as not to draw suspicion by not knowing where things were or how they worked. He also filled her in on his family during lunch, and that's how she learned-

"-that loud blonde lady is your _Aunt_?!" she cried, incredulously. Pietro nodded, laughing.

"Yeah, well…" he paused, looking thoughtful. "She's _our_ Aunt."

"Do we call her Aunt Raven?" Wanda asked, taking notes and smiling. She'd already filled forty pages since morning, and there was still so much more to know!

Pietro shook his head, swinging his feet as he ate his third sandwich. "Nah, we just call her Raven. Or annoying, if she won't shut up."

Wanda laughed as she made another note in her journal. "And what about Hank?"

"We call him Bozo usually, though he's Hank if there's something serious going on, like Raven burning dinner or Dad's chair lift getting stuck for the third time that week."

They laughed together, and wordlessly traded off snacks. They were getting pretty good at this whole 'being a twin' thing.

"So do we ride the horses often?" Wanda asked, eating some of Pietro's fruit snacks. "Or do we just… take care of them?"

"A bit of both," Pietro replied, as he snuck some of her chips off her plate. "See, we _have_ help for the horses, but I like feeding and brushing them myself."

"Well, you're going to have to teach me all that," Wanda said, looking out of the window for a second, before turning her attention back onto him. "I'm great at _riding_ horses, but I can't take care of them. They don't like me much."

Pietro shrugged. "You just gotta be confident. They don't like nervousness in people any more than you'd like nervousness in a horse. Once you know enough, the rest will come naturally."

Wanda nodded, looking thoughtfully out the window. "Do you know how to climb trees?" 

"No, why?" 

Wanda laughed. "Remember those tutors I was telling you about? … well, I- or, I guess, _we-_ hate them, and climb the trees in the backyard to escape from them and their _awful_ lessons. Plus, they baby me, which is absolutely _awful_. I'm smarter than they are, I know it, I just don't 'apply myself', as Papa says."

"Aww man," Pietro slouched in his seat. "So I guess I'm teaching you how to groom horses, and you're gonna have to teach me how to climb trees to get out of homework?"

"Precisely!" Wanda cried, overly happy about this at the look of trepidation on Pietro's face. "We need a _big_ tree too. And you _have_ to climb to the top, and you can't get scared."

Pietro sighed, then got up and grabbed another sandwich for each of them. "Are we gonna regret any of this?" he asked, gesturing between the two of them and their notes and pictures.

"God, I hope not." was all Wanda could say as she pulled out pictures of her own family. "Alright, my turn… this is Uncle Azazel!"

"Oh, cool! He's red!" Pietro yelled excitedly, and Wanda nodded, moving her drink aside to make more room on the table. Pietro picked up the photo and looked at it curiously. "What do we call him?"

Wanda giggled as she laid several more photos down. "Uncle Azazel, of course."

Pietro pretended to facepalm, tilting back in his chair for dramatic effect. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Wanda giggled harder. She really liked Pietro.

\---***---

  
  


Pietro _hated_ Wanda.

Well, that wasn't _strictly_ true. He loved her, actually. A _lot._ Which was big considering he'd really only known her enough to like her since yesterday.

He just wished he could love her with both feet on the ground instead of twenty feet up in a tree.

"Come _on_ Pietro, I _always_ aim for at least twenty-five feet up! And you already taught me horse grooming, so now it's my turn to teach you! So you have to stop looking scared, I'll catch you if you fall, I promise."

Looking up at the eager yet impatient face of his sister, he sighed. " _Promise_ you'll catch me?"

"I swear on my mother's necklace." Wanda said solemnly, and Pietro nodded, hoisting himself up another few branches until he was level with Wanda.

"See, not so bad, is it?" she teased, but Pietro couldn't focus on her, not when there was another, more pressing matter at hand.

Not when Raven was _below the tree._

" _Shit,_ " he hissed, and suddenly, climbing the tree was no problem for him. "Go, go, go! Before she sees us up here!" he whispered and together, they climbed until they had to be forty feet or more up in the air.

Forty feet. In the tree with the "No Climbing!" sign on it. Directly above the world's scariest aunt/older sister.

Pietro _hated_ his luck sometimes.

"We have to get out of this damn tree," he stated quietly. "If Raven sees me up here, then she'll send me back home for _sure,_ and then we'll never get to swap!"

Wanda paled, and looked upset as she glanced around for the solution to an increasingly difficult problem. 

"What if we jumped onto the roof?" she asked quietly, pointing to the roof of the mess hall. "It's not far from here, it's doable. Once we're on the roof, we can slide down to the other side of the mess hall and leave, and Raven will be none the wiser to the fact that we were ever up here at all."

True, they could probably make the gap, as they were only a few feet above the shingles. But the thought of _jumping_ out of a _tree_ was an absolute, solid, resounding "no" from one Pietro Django Xavier.

Wanda, however, was looking at him with big, pleading eyes. "Come on, I'll catch you. And the longer we wait, the more trouble we're going to be in once Raven looks up."

Dammit. She had a point. 

Still…

"Will you jump with me?" Pietro asked nervously, extending his hand out to her, and grateful beyond words that she didn't hesitate to grab it and squeeze his fingers reassuringly. 

"On three…" she whispered, crouching down. Pietro copied her stance. "One…"

"Two…" Pietro _really_ hoped he'd make the gap.

"Three!"

Pietro shut his eyes, and exhaled heavily as he crashed onto the roof. One of his knees took the brunt of the blow, but he didn't dare look as Wanda tugged him forward and Raven shouted "Who's up there?!" at them.

"Oh no, oh no, oh _no."_ Wanda hissed, sliding down the roof, grabbing the gutter and swinging herself onto the ground below with a _whump_. "Pietro, you've got to slide down too! You'll be okay!"

Pietro took a deep breath, and slid down the shingles slowly. He heard Raven's footsteps and questions making their way around to where they were, and he panicked, missing the gutter entirely and dropping straight down to the ground below in a shoulder roll. This wasn't his first rodeo when it came to sliding down roofs, unfortunately. 

As soon as he came up, he grabbed Wanda, scooping her up into his arms in an increasingly familiar (and well practiced) motion, and ran off, all the way back to their cabin without a break. Wanda helpfully snapped his goggles over his eyes so he could see _where_ he was running, which prevented a fair few crashes.

As soon as they were inside, he heard Wanda slam the door shut, and dropped her onto the ground. They looked at each other for a brief moment before breaking out into laughter, still filled with nervous energy and giddy with the fact that they had managed to get away.

"I," Pietro started. "am _never_ going back up a tree again!"

"Well," Wanda said, breaking out the first aid kit for his banged up knee. "You'll have to once you're in London."

Pietro groaned. Wanda laughed again.

\---***---

Unfortunately, they found out, the tree situation was only the _first_ problem of the day.

" _How_ did we overlook the fact that we have different hair colors?" Wanda cried, only an hour after dinner as she flopped onto her bed. "How on _earth_ are we supposed to swap _hair colors?_ "

Pietro looked at her, pacing the room, and she knew he didn't have an answer. "I dunno Wanda… unless we can get some dye-"

He paused as an idea seemed to form, turning to face her. "... wanna sneak off the grounds and buy some hair dye?"

Yes. Yes she did.

Money wasn't a problem, as Wanda and Pietro both had some cash on hand from their respective dads, but getting away from camp… well, that was proving to be particularly tricky, what with all the kids on the porches watching them, and the adults and teenagers in golf carts or on patrol pulling kids out of the lake and breaking up games of flashlight tag.

"Hey, whatcha doing over here?" A cheery voice asked. Wanda saw a teenager- red haired and freckled- drive over to them. "Curfew is in half an hour, you know."

"We know," Wanda began quickly, an idea forming in her head. "But- well- it's embarrassing, really… um… we needed to go down to the gas station."

Pietro gave her an odd look, but she wasn't done yet. "And well, it… uh, it's for _girl things."_ she whispered the last part, and saw the poor teenager's face- who she recognized now as the one Raven called 'Sean' or 'Banshee' when he was being particularly loud- pale. "Do you think you can help? We're not supposed to go anywhere without a buddy so…" she gestured to Pietro. "He had to come with me."

Sean looked sympathetic, and nodded. "Sure thing… uhhh… you do have money for this, right?" 

Wanda nodded, pulling a twenty out of her shorts. "We just need to get there and back."

"Uh… alright." Sean scratched the back of his neck as Wanda and Pietro climbed onto the cart. "Just be quick. Like I said, curfew's in half an hour, and I'm already in trouble for breaking one of the shed windows."

"We will!" the twins chimed, and Sean drove off, the setting sun illuminating the dust trail and painting the trees in a reddish gold hue as the hint of stars began to twinkle in the sky. 

The ride passed quickly in the form of ten games of rock-paper-scissors and three of 'I, Spy'. Pietro, predictably, lost most of the games, giving Wanda a dirty look after every loss. She just gave him her signature "I'm adorable, you can't hate me" smile.

"Hey, uhhh… no- no fighting dudes, c'mon. We already put you in a cabin together." Sean said worriedly, watching Pietro put Wanda in a headlock from the rearview mirror after one particularly brutal match of 'I, Spy'.

Wanda and Pietro looked at each other, as they had honestly forgotten that they were supposed to still be fighting. Sean looked relieved as they paused their impromptu wrestling match, and then looked _terrified_ as they cackled in unison.

The rest of the drive he gripped his steering wheel tight and his walkie-talkie tighter.

"Where's the hair dye in here?" Wanda asked, once they were inside. Sean had decided to wait in the cart, and Wanda couldn't blame him. Not after she and Pietro had 'pretended' to throw each other off the golf cart.

"Hmmmm…" Pietro tapped his foot on the ground at speedy pace, then raced down all the aisles until he stopped at the one closest to the bathroom, then rushed back to grab Wanda and bring her over. "Found it!"

"Nice." Wanda high-fived him as they pored over the meanger selection. All the dye was cheap, so whatever they bought, they'd have to make it last. "You look for your hair color, and I'll look for mine. It probably won't matter if we're a few shades off, just as long as we're close."

Pietro nodded, picking up a box to inspect it as the bell above the door chimed. "We might have to buy extra boxes of dye here, or when we leave camp. I doubt this will last more than a few weeks at most, and who _knows_ how long it'll take for us to get our dads back together again."

"What are you two doing?" a gruff man at the end of the aisle asked. He was large and intimidating, with a stained shirt, mutton chops, and a nasty cigar odor wafting off of him as he menacingly approached them, a hard glint in his eyes. 

Pietro stepped in front of Wanda instantly, and Wanda, who was never good at confrontation without escalating it, but had perfected the art of avoiding it, let the barest hint of red tint her eyes and hands as she 'redirected' the man to another part of the store, fists clenched tightly. She didn't know what his deal was, but it was probably best that they didn't cross paths again.

Once he was out of sight, they looked at each other and let out a sigh of relief at the same time.

"Should've said we were planning on committing a crime, he would've left us alone just the same," Pietro said warily, picking up a box of dye that matched his hair surprisingly well. "C'mon, we don't even need to pay. Not after Creepy McChildsnatcher decided he needed to glare at us for _existing_."

Wanda slapped the back of his hand, not with too much force, but enough for him to notice. "If we steal, we'll get shot. You know how the police are with people like us."

Pietro sighed again, glancing around the store like he wanted nothing more than to just run out of it. "Fine. Let's just hurry up."

Wanda nodded in full agreement and grabbed her box, paying quickly at the front counter as Pietro kept a lookout for the man, glaring at him every time he glanced up from his browsing. 

Wanda felt herself being essentially dragged outside and away from the man once everything was paid for, and neither she nor Pietro relaxed, even in the golf cart, until she saw the now familiar campground sign in her sight, and adults she knew wandering around.

"Sean!" Raven snapped, running towards them as she noticed them approaching. "Where did you- did… did you take campers _off-ground?_ Dude, that's against the.. I don't know, the law? The rules?" she slapped the hood of the cart with her clipboard. "Whatever. You can't-!"

Wanda waved her hand in front of Raven's face to get her attention, clutching the bag as tight as she dared, and whispered quickly into her ear as she beckoned her down, hoping against hope she'd buy the lie and not ask to see the inside the bag for proof.

" _Ohhhhhhh…_ well, uhhh… in the future, just go to a counselor for that, they have supplies to spare for situations just like this, alright?"

Wanda nodded, and Pietro looked less on-edge as Raven apologized to Sean and even jumped into the cart as they were driven back to their cabin, as night had fallen and it was "too dark to be wandering around by yourselves." as Raven had said.

"Thank you." Wanda squeaked, running off to get inside and hide the boxes. Pietro hung back for a few seconds to talk to his aunt, and when he came inside, he looked much happier than before, so Wanda could only assume whatever Raven had said to him had lifted his spirits by a good amount.

Pietro noticed her staring, and grinned. "Raven said I was becoming a 'true gentleman' and was proud of me for being 'mature enough to put aside my differences' to help you. She offered to let us go back to our old cabins, but I told her we were friends now. She seemed pretty pleased with herself when I told her that."

Wanda sat on her bed, swinging her feet as she kicked her shoes off. "Well, I'm glad you told her we wanted to stay together, as I'm not sure how well or how much we'd be able to plan if we were separated again."

Pietro nodded, jumping on his bed. "You know," he began, grabbing a marker. "We should put this on the 'Shared Experiences' board."

"Excellent. I always wanted to thwart a potential kidnapper with my long-lost twin brother at ten pm on a Tuesday." Wanda deadpanned, then squealed as Pietro launched himself forward to tickle her. "Alright, alright! You can put it up, okay!"

Pietro grinned wider, and scrawled 'escaped a kidnapper' on the board, right below 'choked on punch in front of crush' and 'saw a peacock where peacocks shouldn't be'.

"There! Another one for the books." he said proudly. "Now we just have to cut and dye our hair and we'll be ready to swap places at a moment's notice."

Wanda matched his grin with one of her own. The more the plan came together, the more excited she became, and she noticed it in Pietro too.

Soon, they would get to know the parent they had never met, and Wanda, for one, couldn't _wait_.

\---***---

Camp passed by _far_ too quickly for Pietro's liking, and yet, he felt as if the summer would never end. 

One of the last things he did, before he packed his bags, was play another round of poker with Wanda's friends, inviting his own to join as well. They all picked up on the fact that they were no longer fighting surprisingly quick.

"Yeah, we noticed it after you guys started laughing when one of you was being annoying to the other, instead of at each other's throats twenty-four seven." Shuri said, collecting her share of the pot. "We wondered if you guys were dating, to be honest."

Wanda pulled a _face_ and Pietro pretended to puke. " _I,"_ he stated strongly, quickly and decisively, "Prefer Leonardo DiCaprios to Lana Del Reys."

"I prefer Lanas to Leonardos." Wanda said, and Shuri nodded wisely, shuffling the card expertly.

" _Ahhhhhhh._ So _that's_ why you get along so well now."

Sure. They could go with that. As long as the idea of _Pietro_ dating his _sister_ was out of their minds.

 _Yuck_.

Unfortunately, that wasn't where the trouble ended, as there were several more things they had to get done before camp was over. Refreshing their memories on house layouts, their habits, how to avoid questions on their powers or divert attention to something else, tending to the horses, going over the handshake greeting until it was perfected, and of course, fixing their appearances.

Pietro had to shave his legs in the locker rooms the night before they left, and it was a _nightmare_ involving no less than twenty bandages and curses in both English and German. (He had begged Wanda until she gave in for _those_ particular words.) 

It had caused several concerned campers and counselors to check up on them multiple times throughout the whole ordeal, which was understandable in Pietro's opinion. Doing pilates to get rid of _knee_ _hair_ called for a certain reaction, and most people would assume something else much more dangerous was happening, through no fault of their own.

But overall, the less said about the Shaving Incident, the better.

(Pietro couldn't believe he'd have to do it every few _days_ . Women were _crazy._ )

Finally though, it was Wanda's turn to lose some hair, and Pietro grabbed a pair of large, steel scissors from the desk, pulling his hair down in front of his face and measuring on Wanda's apprehensive one. They both closed their eyes as he prepared to snip her hair, and Pietro jumped back as she yelled at him.

"Don't close _your_ eyes!" she said, pouting at him. Pietro felt bad, as she had a point. There was only so much hair he could take off before they ran into _another_ problem.

"Right, right… sorry sis." he apologized, taking another deep breath, and cutting before either of them could back out. Wanda kept her eyes squeezed shut the entire time, gripping the stool, and didn't open them until Pietro grabbed her hand and led her over to the mirror, gently encouraging her to look. He was pretty proud of his work, actually. They really _did_ look like twins now.

"Oh my _god,"_ she breathed, touching her now short hair. Pietro put his hand on his waist, gesturing with the other one loosely.

"Honey, you've never looked better."

As Wanda continued to play with her hair, a small smile lighting up her face, Pietro saw another difference between them, one that was a little more… _concerning._

"Oh shit…" he said, tugging on his earrings. "My ears are pierced… and yours aren't. Wanda, we've gotta pierce your ears!"

"Nuh-uh." she said defensively, crossing her arms. "I _refuse."_

"Well then cutting your hair was all for nothing, 'cause I can't go to camp with earrings and come back _without_ them," Pietro said, tugging on his earlobe for emphasis. "It'll be okay, I pierced my own ears, I can do yours too."

He looked at her, pleading slightly. "C'mon, it's not as bad as you think it is. And any pain you feel goes away pretty quickly.

Wanda sighed, resigned. He remembered what she had told him a few days ago about hating needles, and patted her shoulder in sympathy. "Don't worry, we can use ice to numb your ears beforehand too. You won't feel a thing."

"Promise?" Wanda asked, and Pietro nodded, projecting confidence into his smile to reassure her. It worked, and he mentally calculated how much ice they'd need in order for him to be able to keep his promise.

However, he was bad at math.

Really, they should've taken that into account, but they did not.

Later that night, Wanda laid on his bed, an ice cube on her earlobe, watching Pietro sterilize a sewing needle with a smuggled lighter. He was unsure of how well this could go, and if he fucked it up… there was gonna be bigger repercussions than a broken promise.

"Apple slice," he said, handing it over to Wanda and readying the needle. He was even more nervous than when he had cut her hair, which was now a light shade of blonde on the pillow underneath her head. There was no second chance if he fucked this up, and he wondered if this really was a good idea after all. Maybe they could just get away with not doing this.

Unfortunately, his hand had a mind of its own and he plunged the needle straight through her ear.

Wanda screamed.

Pietro screamed.

Honestly, it was a miracle no one thought to check for a serial killer in the woods.

(Thought that would've been a pretty epic way to end the already crazy summer.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cookie will be given to all those who can correctly guess who it was in the gas station with Wanda and Pietro (also that and the tree scene were some of the first ideas that came to my mind when writing this and I'm happy to present them to y'all now :) )
> 
> I hope you all have a safe and happy week. Thanks for reading!


	8. Touchdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! Next week's chapter might get delayed, as I'm still working on it and the bone doctors are stealing my wisdom teeth this weekend, but we'll see 
> 
> Orginally, this was my longest chapter at over 7 thousand (unfinished) but I broke it into two parts. This one is entirely Pietro's pov, and the next one will be Wanda's. After that, we'll go back to switching off between the two of them

The next day was the last day of camp, and they regrettably took down the pinned together picture. Wanda took the half with her dad, and Pietro did the same, the silence almost deafening if it hadn't been for the fact that they had perfected the art of communicating silently as they packed both their own and their sibling's bags.

"Well," Wanda hugged Pietro tightly as he dashed them out and to the camp entrance. "This is it."

Pietro hugged her back, and he  _ definitely _ was only tearing up from the dirt clouding the air up and swirling all around them, and  _ not _ from already missing her. Wanda refused to let go, and he was in no hurry to say goodbye either, but they could hear their calls to get going- Raven had gone home early to help Charles with some wine event, so they were both flying solo, which  _ definitely _ wasn't adding to their nerves. Nope.

"Remember," Pietro murmured into Wanda's hair. "You find out why Dad and Papa broke up-"

"And you'll find out how they met-" Wanda continued.

"And we'll  _ both  _ get them back together." they finished in unison, giggling slightly.

"Wanda Lehnsherr! Your ride is here!" Alex called, carrying Scott on his back and waving his clipboard in the air to get their attention. Pietro stood on his toes and kissed the top of Wanda's head, hugging her one last time. 

"See you soon,  _ Scarlet Witch." _ he said teasingly, using the nickname he'd bestowed upon her a few nights ago after finding out their papa called her his 'little witch'. Wanda had instantly loved it, and now had a bracelet in her pocket with the name on it.

"See you soon,  _ Quicksilver."  _ Wanda replied in kind, giving  _ him _ his signature salute and furthering his confidence in her ability to mimic him. He flashed his own bracelet at her with a quick motion to show off, as it was the last time he'd be able to see the streaks of silver trail after him for some time, and walked as properly as he could to the limousine, accepting the hand offered to him, as Wanda had instructed.

He leaned out the window to wave goodbye as the campgrounds faded away, missing his goggles, his bed, and his sister most of all, yet looking forward to meeting his papa for the first time in his memory. He kept his fingers crossed the whole plane ride to London, clutching his carry-on bag to his chest and whispering over and over again "Please let him like me. Please,  _ please _ let him like me."

Which was a little ridiculous to wish for, since he was playing the role of someone else who his papa  _ already  _ liked.

It didn't stop him from hoping things would go well though, ankles crossed tightly to squash the urge to tap his leg the whole fight home. He  _ hated _ staying still, and hoped he and Wanda could get their dads back together soon so he could go back to whizzing around everywhere he went. 

Wanda, of course, had the decency to move as fast as she could around him, but everyone else on the plane and in the terminal were all blissfully ignorant to how  _ slow _ they were with  _ everything  _ they did.

Luckily, most people attributed his frustration for anxiety and gave him sympathetic looks instead of threatening to fight him.

Or maybe it was the outfit. (That he pulled off better than his sister  _ ever  _ could… sorry Wanda.)

Another thing Pietro didn't account for was that, without Raven here to pick him up at a moment's notice, he couldn't see over the sea of heads surrounding him. Huffing, he stood on the plastic chairs looking for Janos's face, squinting at the bright sun streaming through the huge glass windows.

"Miss Wanda, miss Wanda!" he heard from somewhere, and almost ignored until he remembered that was  _ him _ now, and he waved a man with a large bouquet of yellow flowers over, grinning and hoping beyond hope he could pull the next few minutes of his act off. If he could, well… he would  _ definitely  _ be in the clear, and the rest of the plan could continue.

"Look at you, you've cut your hair!" Janos exclaimed, and Pietro nodded, playing with it a little out of sheer nervousness. He needed to fiddle with  _ something _ .

"Do you like it?" he asked, wondering if Janos would get mad at the short hair, a question he hadn't thought of until now. However, he was greeted instead with a dazzling smile.

"I  _ love _ it. It's the new you." Janos promised, setting the bouquet down on the chairs. "Now come here and give me five, old sport."

Pietro took a deep breath as he grasped the hand Janos offered, shaking it-

-and pulled the greeting off  _ perfectly.  _ He had a feeling that if Wanda could see him now, she'd look as proud of him as he felt. Sure, it may have been  _ slightly _ rushed out of nerves, but Janos didn't seem to mind and that was all that mattered.

"These are for you, miss," Janos said, exchanging Pietro's bag for the bouquet. Flowers were a pretty nice present to receive after a long flight, and he decided he liked Janos a lot.

"So, how was camp?" Janos asked as they exited the airport and got into  _ another _ limousine, driving to what would be Pietro's home for the first time- but no one else needed to know that.

Pietro didn't know where to begin, but did his very best, talking throughout the whole ride at a mile a minute, gesturing wildly at times for emphasis, looking at the streets passing him in fascination and wonder. He'd only been to London a handful of times, but he'd never seen the buildings and monuments they passed before. He wondered, in the back of his mind, if that was by design, so his dad wouldn't have to run into his Papa and there wouldn't be any awkward questions or encounters.

Well, if so, then that plan was certainly shot to the tenth circle of hell by now.

"Here we are," Janos said, as they went through a large, intricate iron gate, and Pietro was suddenly grateful for the fact that he had grown up in reasonably large houses, as otherwise a surprised reaction would've been suspicious. However, as it was, he tried to keep his expression into one of delight at being home rather than delight that he was, very technically speaking, at the wrong house, in the wrong country.

He stepped out of the car, clutching his flowers if only to have something to hold, and walked inside the quiet, yet warm, house. 

It was different from his own, and even the pictures Wanda had shown him couldn't do the grandeur of the mansion justice, what with the ivory pillars and dark wood and rich, red carpet everywhere he looked. 

He drank up the sights before him, like a man dying of thirst, putting his bouquet down on a small side table as he walked into the sitting room to see a large banner welcoming him home and the scent of an expensive cigar wafting through the room opposite to him, which he vaguely recalled to be Azazel's office.

"U-uncle Azazel?" Pietro  _ hated _ how his voice shook, on the edge of cracking, but he swallowed hard as he stepped around the corner to see a man holding a newspaper in scared red hands, which hastily closed the paper as soon as Pietro had spoken.

The look in the man's eyes was kinder than he expected, and the smile he gave him even more so.

"My god, is that you? Is this the same grandchild I shipped off to America?" Azazel cried in faux surprise,coming around the desk to hug Pietro. "Look at you! You've grown fifty feet since I last saw you!"

Pietro grinned, inhaling the scent of the older man as he was hugged. It was new, but felt almost familiar, like he had known this particular blend of tobacco smoke and cologne before.

Maybe he had. Maybe he had known this man before his dads separated, and his brain had held onto the only thing it could when one was so young. Pietro remembered one of his dad's studies on the human brain, how people tended to remember certain smells more than any other visual memory or sensation.

… a fact he forgot most other people tended to be uninformed of as Azazel looked at him oddly.

"Good heavens," he exclaimed, though in good humor. "What  _ are _ you doing?"

"Making a memory," Pietro replied sheepishly, going for a winning smile. "So that, years from now, I'll always remember that my Uncle smelled of… tobacco smoke and... his favorite brand of cologne!"

Azazel tipped his head back and roared with laughter, ruffling his hair. It felt nice, like being back home with Raven, and he gently swiped at Azazel's hands as his hair was messed up.

"Wanda, is that you?" A new voice asked from the front hall, and Pietro  _ knew, _ in the way he knew his eyes were green and Wanda was his sister, that the voice belonged to his Papa.

He was hearing his Papa's voice for the first time in  _ years _ . For the first time in his memory.

Nervously, Pietro looked at Azazel, silently asking for permission to leave, and Azazel, bless him, steered Pietro out of the room and watched him walk towards the stairs on unsteady legs.

Just like before with the pictures Wanda had shown him of the mansion, the picture his dad gave him in no way compared to seeing his Papa face to face, and Pietro was actually  _ glad _ his legs were moving slower than usual, so that he wouldn't be given away this early into meeting him, so that he could stay here,  _ live _ here, with his Papa.

His Papa, who was hugging him. His papa, who was whispering his sister's name over and over again, instead of his, although that didn't even  _ matter _ so long as it meant he never had to let go.

Erik seemed to have a similar mindset, scooping Pietro up in his arms with a practiced ease, planting a kiss on his forehead.

"Did you get lighter, my little witch?" Erik asked, and Pietro shrugged. He tended to burn more calories than most due to his metabolism, and he hadn't exactly been on top of eating lately, too excited and busy planning and plotting and scheming and scamming to even  _ get _ to this point, so it was entirely probable that he was lighter than Wanda was when she left.

Erik gave him a look, then shrugged too. "Might be my imagination, it's been a while since I held you, you know."

Pietro couldn't help himself from hugging Erik again, dropping his face on his shoulder to try and push down the tears of happiness threatening to fall. "Sorry Papa."

Erik chuckled, then kissed his cheek. "Ahh, don't worry about it. We've got a nice dinner all planned for tonight, with duck and roasted potatoes."

Pietro fistpumped, careful not to jostle Erik as he walked into the room- more of another office, really- to take a call, which was a mistake as Erik gave him a  _ look _ , but he almost didn't care. He  _ loved _ duck and roasted potatoes. He tried a tactic he'd seen Wanda use many times once Erik was done on the phone, and smiled sweetly. 

"Uhh, sorry… I had a roommate at camp who I  _ miiight've _ picked up a few habits from."

Erik smiled back, smoothing his hair down and complimenting it as Janos popped around the door. "Habits aren't the only thing you picked up from your roommates, miss."

_ "Cuppy!" _ Pietro hissed, feeling stupid, relieved, and slightly annoyed all at once. Out of all the things he and Wanda had in common, a Cuppy wasn't one of them, but the knowledge that Pietro hadn't forgotten him at camp was reassuring, to say the least. 

"Uh, that's umm… my roommate's! The one I was telling you about." He said, looking at Erik. "It must've gotten mixed up in my thing while we were packing up earlier."

Erik nodded, and Janos made to leave the room. "I'll just ship this back, shall I?" Janos said, but Pietro kept forward, gently grabbing Cuppy from his hands.

"I'll do it!" Pietro volunteered. "I mean, my friend must be worried  _ sick _ about this little thing and you  _ know  _ how trans-Atlantic postage can get mixed up and damaged, and to destroy something so uh, precious would  _ absolutely  _ be out of the question, no doubt about it."

And with that, he strolled out of the room, clutching Cuppy to his chest and barging into Wanda's- well,  _ his _ \- room, hiding the stuffed rabbit in between the desk and wall, carefully avoiding the mess in the room. He'd have to call Wanda later, see if the mess was normal before he touched anything. 

Between the whole "meeting the dad he'd never met" and being in a new country impersonating a sister he had only known a few weeks, well... he was feeling what Charles affectionately called "the jitters"- a side-effect of the whole "gotta go fast" thing. He'd have to burn some of the excess energy off before he went back out _and_ be quiet while doing so- no easy feat.

Taking a deep breath, he carefully listened for anyone outside the door, and after confirming that there was no one nearby, he proceeded to run his nervous energy off for about forty seconds.

Not bad, but nowhere _near_ what he'd be able to do back home.

Maybe this wasn't gonna be as easy as he thought.

Still, the room had a lock, so he'd be able to run every so often, he'd just have to be smart about  _ when _ he did it. If he got caught too early in the operation, the entire plan and everything both Wanda and himself worked for would be for literally nothing.

Not an option. No way, no how.

After making  _ sure _ Cuppy wouldn't fall, he brushed his hair down and walked back to Erik's office, just in time to see him get off the phone.

"Ah, there you are." Erik said, patting the top of his head. "How would you feel about coming with me to a photoshoot? If you're not too tired, of course."

"Are you  _ kidding?" _ Pietro squealed, jumping up in the air. He was pretty sure he had actually frozen in the air, like a cartoon character. "Of course I want to go! When are we leaving? Does Lory have to come? How long are we gonna be out? Where's the photoshoot at? What-"

Erik grinned as he removed his hand from over Pietro's mouth. "One question at a time,  _ liebing.  _ You know I can't keep up with you when you ramble like this."

Pietro chewed his lower lip in thought. "Is Lory coming with us?" he asked first, because as shitty as it was, he was sorta hoping the answer was 'no.' So he wanted to spend a whole afternoon with only his papa. Sue him.

Erik chuckled, shaking his head. Above them, an invisible choir of angels sang hymns and baby cherubs threw flower petals over them. The sun was shining out of God's ass and Jesus was blessing everything in sight.

Okay. So maybe not. 

But Pietro was going to spend a  _ whole afternoon  _ with the parent he hadn't meant since he was an actual baby, and he was approximately .02 seconds from literally  _ vibrating  _ with happiness.

He threw his arms around Erik, and was rewarded with a kiss on top of the head and a quick order to change, which he pulled off as fast as he could, (read: he threw on a light blue suit in under a second) pulling on Erik's arm and trying to get him out of the mansion as fast as possible. Everyone seemed to think it was charming and  _ adorable _ \- a change of pace from back home. Raven would've thumped him, Charles would've politely lectured him on patience, and Hank, well… Hank probably wouldn't notice, if Pietro was being honest. He could run circles around that dude and get the same reaction if he sat in a chair, still as a statue.

He would know too, seeing as how he had some said thing multiple times.

(Hank did say if you were gonna come up with a hypothesis you could test, you should go for it. And Pietro liked testing things. Boundaries and rules, for instance.)

Nonetheless, Erik was slower to get out the door than Pietro felt he usually was, but that was okay. Pietro just wanted to spend some time with him, and Erik felt the same, if the way he was letting Pietro ramble was any indication.

"Have you ever thought of getting married again? I mean, with all the work you do on stuff like this, doesn't it make you want to have a wedding of your own?" Pietro asked conversationally, trying to hide how closely he was observing his papa for his answer. They were at a gazebo Erik had designed, with birds and flowers and vines intricately weaved in a gorgeous pattern, sun shining off the silver metal. Erik tore his gaze off his handiwork to look at Pietro in a bemused manner.

"No… I suppose I haven't."

"But  _ why? _ " Pietro asked, confused. Didn't he  _ want  _ to get back together with Charles? Pietro circled Erik, essentially hounding him as he repeated his question. "Why why why why  _ why  _ why why why w-"

"You are  _ chatty _ today." Erik chuckled, removing his hand off Pietro's mouth. Pietro just smiled sweetly, clasping his hands behind his back to hide his fear. Was  _ Wanda _ chatty like him? She certainly talked to  _ him _ a lot during camp.

"I'm chatty lots of times, papa." He tried, hoping this was the correct response. Going off of the laughs of his papa and several other crew members setting up lighting and props for the photoshoot, it was, thank  _ fuck. _

"That I will not disagree with." Erik said, pausing to readjust a small part of the gazebo. "But, to answer your question- it's-... well, it's complicated."

Pietro nodded sympathetically. Adults tended to make things much more difficult for themselves then was strictly necessary, so it was no surprise his papa was the same way. See: separating him and his sister, for one. Or  _ insisting _ on wearing formal wear all the  _ time. _

(Seriously, this had to be a form of like- child abuse or something.)

"However," Erik continued. "I will say that I have thought of it from time to time, certainly."

" _ Annnnnnd?" _ Pietro questioned further, leaning forward on the tips of his toes and waiting for another answer. Erik pushed him back down onto the soles of his feet, but there was a smile playing on his face, so he wasn't really annoyed with him, which was good, because he had a million more questions to go.

" _ And," _ Erik said, directing a few cameras into what Pietro  _ supposed _ were better shooting positions. "I've thought that it's better to wait for now. I'll know who I'll want to marry when I meet them."

Pietro shrugged, not really satisfied with that answer and choosing to distract himself from any further questions by moving the cameras to better capture the scene. One of the workers whistled lowly as he checked the shot.

"Well, don't you have an eye for this sort of thing." He said, nodding in approval. Pietro was about to mention his own camera setup back home, then remembered that one- he was, technically, home, and two- Wanda did not have a camera setup.

But she  _ did  _ do art.

"Well, I do a lot of drawings, and all art forms require a critical and creative eye, yeah?"

The man nodded in agreement, and Pietro felt like he had dodged a bullet. Especially after Erik looked at him with  _ pride _ .

Hands down though, the best part of the day wasn't that moment, thought it did come close. 

It wasn't when he was included in the photoshoot, or even when he got to taste some of the cake samples the bride-to-be had out. (Lemon with vanilla buttercream, yum.)

No, the best part of his day was on the ride home, dozing off against his papa's side, and feeling content for the first time in a long time, in staying still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week- when worlds collide and two petty people meet, the results are disastrous yet entertaining to read :D have a good week y'all


	9. Touchdown (Take Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I GOT IT FINISHED. It was hard, I've been in a lot of pain since the Tooth Theft Surgery, but I polished it up over a dinner of spaghetti (a break from the soup and applesauce I've been condemned to) and it's here today.
> 
> If my timing is accurate we're over halfway done with this story, which is VERY exciting. I'm hoping to write another chapter and a half before next week, as this is the current point in my writing where I've stopped.
> 
> The last scenes/lines are almost directly from the movie itself, as I've been unfortunately too tired to write too much original dialogue. Hopefully this'll change with the next few chapters, but I guess it's fitting, as this IS supposed to match the movie up pretty closely.
> 
> As always, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.

Wanda tugged on her jean jacket as she stepped off the plane, sweating under the crappy AC and thick, humid California air. She wasn't used to temperatures like this, but she knew she'd had to be soon. Pietro had grown up here and she  _ had _ to pass as him.

No  _ way _ was she going to be the one who ruined the whole operation.

Clutching her bags, she leapt up a few times, trying to see where Charles-  _ her dad- _ was… and found him quickly, sitting off to the side in a wheelchair and frantically waving her over.

Wanda felt her face break out into a wide grin, and slowly, carefully, bridged a twelve year old gap between herself and her dad, blinking rapidly to hold back tears.

"H-hey dad." Damn it. Why'd she have to get choked up now? She cleared her throat slightly, shaking with nervous excitement. "I missed you."

Charles beamed at her, opening his arms- and this time, she didn't hesitate to move forward. "Come here, old friend."

Wanda clutched her dad tightly, hugging him for the first time in her memory, possibly in her  _ life, _ and knew this day couldn't get any better.

"Did you have fun at camp?" Charles asked, once he had pulled away. Wanda nodded, practically  _ bouncing  _ on her feet. 

"It was a lot- a  _ lot _ \- of fun." She said, then paused- she had almost forgotten a vital detail of The Plan. "I did hurt my knee though, and now it hurts when I run." she gave a heaving sigh, like she'd seen Pietro do multiple times. Charles patted her arm, smiling sympathetically.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Pietro. But I'm sure you'll be back to running circles around the rest of us in no time."

She nodded. He'd bought the lie hook, line and sinker. She was pretty sure it was the eyes. Between her and Pietro, no one could resist the puppy eyes. Peter was the only one who could best them, a fact they had all accepted long ago.

Anyhow. Off topic.

She walked alongside Charles's wheelchair, filling him in on various details- the camp counselors ("Raven was  _ annoying, _ " and Charles laughed as he chided her), the food, the games, and did she have fun.

"Oh  _ yes,  _ camp was perfectly lovely, dad." 

Charles gave her an odd look, and Wanda knew, instinctively, she was on Fuck Up number 1.

"Since when do you use the word 'lovely?' Did I send you to a day camp or a finishing school?" he teased, and Wanda tried her best to Play It Cool.

"Uhhh… guess I just picked it up from being around you so often, dad."

"And why do you keep ending every sentence with "dad?" You don't have to say it every time you speak, love."

"Sorry, dad." Wanda giggled nervously, trying to hide both how anxious and elated she was to even  _ have _ a conversation with her dad. "Actually, do you want to know why I keep saying 'dad'?"

Charles gave her a "continue" look, and Wanda plowed on.

"It's because, well, not everyone is lucky enough to have a dad, right, maybe they only have a mother or grandparents or- or a crazy aunt or something, and I learned at camp, y'know, not to take having a dad for granted, and now I'm just really, really glad to see you again, dad."

Charles smiled in amusement, turning onto a dirt road. "Well, that's quite a lesson to have learned, Pietro."

Wanda, who had temporarily forgotten that she was impersonating her brother, jumped, then nodded- before noticing the house and rolling vineyards coming into view and feeling her excitement  _ triple _ . "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh oh my gosh ohmygooosh, it's the house! We're home!"

It was  _ beautiful _ . Even Charles laughing and exclaiming "there's the Pietro I know" couldn't distract her from the splendor around her. Dark green leaves with bunches of purple, red, and light green peeking through the foliage, white fencing surrounding trees with budding apples and peaches and pears, and, of course, The House. Dark green paint and maple wood, with large, open windows and the biggest wrap around porch Wanda had ever  _ seen _ . 

It was  _ nothing _ like her mansion back in London, and it was  _ gorgeous.  _ The pictures Pietro had shared had done it a disservice- Wanda couldn't  _ wait _ to see the inside of the place. She was bouncing in her seat, tugging impatiently at her seatbelts as she waited for Charles to park the car, and jumped out of the window, not even bothering to open the door.

_ "Wow _ ."

"Missed home that badly, did you?" Charles asked. Wanda nodded and helped him with his wheelchair, swiveling them both around and around under the bright sun.

"Hey hey, howdy." Raven ruffled her hair. "Welcome home, squirt. Made some chili for you, just the way you like it."

"Oh, ummm… I'm not hungry right now. Thank you though."

Raven and Charles exchanged a  _ look, _ once with each other and then with her.

Dammit. She wasn't supposed to be raising suspicion this early!

\---

"Ugh, who's  _ that? _ " Wanda asked, confused. Through her binoculars she could see a tall, blonde lady stalking up to Charles, like a cat after a particularly fat, pump mouse. She grabbed her phone out of her open and took several pictures of the… "makeout session" as Raven, who was just as helpful at home as she was at camp, explained.

"Emma… Frost, I think. She's been a real pain in the ass, but…" Raven grimaced. "Charles likes her, so we have to put up with her, bud. Who knows, maybe she'll like you. God knows she doesn't like  _ me." _

"Is she a mutant?" Ugh. Charles had his  _ hand  _ on her  _ ass _ . Pietro was going to freak the fuck out, and honestly? Wanda was close to that point too. This was a serious, major emergency.

"Telepath, like Charles. It's how they got so close in the first place."

"Ugh. She looks…" Wanda gestured vaguely with her hands, then finished pathetically. "... tacky."

"I  _ know." _ Raven threw a pair of swim trunks and a shirt at her. "But like I said, she makes Charles happy, so just… give her a chance, alright?"

Wanda groaned and went into the bathroom to change. She thought California was going to be  _ fun _ .

\---

Wanda walked to the poolside, wrapped up in a thick, fluffy towel, sunglasses perched on her face. Up close, Emma looked even more prim and fancy and like every other high society girl Wanda never hesitated to dump a punch bowl on.

But she pushed her glasses up. Just to be nice.

"Hello love," Charles greeted her, wheeling over to give her a hug. "I want you to meet a friend of mine. Pietro… this is Emma Frost."

Wanda felt a light touch on the surface of her mind, and fuck if that wasn't an attempt to read her thoughts.

Hope you like the sound of a goat screaming to Taylor Swift, lady.

Frost didn't flinch, per se, but she did move back ever so slightly, which was a win. "Hi." 

"Hi… Emma Frost."

"I cannot believe I'm meeting the famous Pietro," Frost plowed on, and Wanda got the sense there was something more she was  _ dying  _ to say. "I have been looking forward to this all summer."

"Really? Well…" Wanda shrugged, putting on a bashful act. "Here I am."

"Oh Charlie, he's adorable!" Emma smiled, and those teeth were  _ definitely  _ not natural. "You know, the way he talked about you, I was expecting to meet a little boy, but you are  _ so  _ grown up."

Charles and Frost laughed, sounding slightly uncomfortable, but Wanda didn't care. Now they knew how she felt.

"I'll be thirteen soon," Wanda said, then shrugged again. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-six." Frost said, and Wanda pretended to smile wider.

"Only fourteen years older than me!" Wanda paused, then turned to Charles. "How old are you again, dad?"

"Wow, suddenly you're so interested in math!" Charles patted Wanda's shoulder, clearly trying to change the subject. "Look, I'm going to go inside, maybe get some more chili…" Charles looked at Frost, and Wanda contemplated how socially acceptable it was to puke in a pool. "Maybe get a bottle of champagne to celebrate."

"What are we celebrating?" Wanda asked, looking at Charles in confusion. However, it was Frost who answered.

"Your homecoming, of course!"

Wanda was incredibly suspicious of this, hearing the annoying ringtone of Frost's phone, but she shot Charles her best smile, and assured him she'd love nothing more than to bond with a virtual stranger who was currently wrecking her plans to get her dads back together.

… Not in so many words, exactly, but she came off as polite and caring and that was all that mattered.

"Emma Frost," she heard Frost say, and turned away as she put a finger up and essentially dismissed Wanda. "Hello, Reverend Mosby…"

Wanda listened in on the call as she tested the pool water, (cool but not cold- perfect) waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

"It sounds very important, but unfortunately, Mr. Xavier is going to be out of the country on those days!"

Well  _ that _ was news to Wanda. Out of the country for what, exactly?

She turned her attention back to Frost and found her on the edge of her pool seat, a shark-like smile on her face.

"So, how was camp, Piet? Was it fabulous?"

Who did she think she was fooling? Wanda was not born yesterday, thank you very much for checking. She needed answers, and for that, she needed an act. A farce, if you will.

"My dad's going out of the country?" She asked, rubbing her shoulder in "stress". 

"Oh…" Frost gave a short, fake laugh. "No, I just had to tell a little white lie to get him out of something."

Wanda hummed, turning this information over in her mind as Frost continued on.

"You know, I have  _ never  _ heard a man talk about his son the way he talks about you… you two are obviously incredibly close." Ah.  _ There _ it was. Jealousy isn't a good look on you, Emma middle name currently unknown Frost.

Oh, she was good though. But Wanda? Well...

Wanda was better.

"Well, we're closer than close. We're all each other have!"

And then jumped into the pool. Frost's muffled shriek from underwater was  _ satisfying. _

Resurfacing, Wanda put on a faux tone of concern. "Sorry! Did I get you wet there?"

"Just a little, Piet." Frost stated in a clipped tone, using Wanda's towel to dab the water off her dress and arms and fanning herself with her obnoxious hat. Clearing her throat, Frost stridded up to the edge of the pool, and crouched down.

"Hey, guess what," Ohhhh, there was something in that tone alright. "Your daddy took me riding the other day, and he let me ride  _ your  _ horse. I hope that's okay with you."

Wanda pulled herself through a red pool floatie, avoiding eye contact as she nonchalantly responded. "Oh, sure! Sprout's used to strange women riding her… not that you're  _ strange _ or anything… actually, compared to the others, you're relatively normal!"

"Others?" Frost questioned. "What others?"

Gotcha, Wanda though.

"You want the 411?" 

"What's… the 411?"

Wanda swung herself in a circle inside the floatie, taking her time to respond. "Y'know, the information. The lowdown on the other women. Can't say I blame you, I'd want to know if I was number twenty-eight-" Wanda pretended to cut herself off and correct herself. "I mean, number twenty-nine in a man's life."

Frost raised a perfectly trimmed eyebrow, as if skeptical of the information Wanda was feeding her. " _ I'm  _ number twenty-nine?"

"Yeah," Wanda sighed, 'resigned.' "It's always the same routine. Horseback riding through the vineyards… romantic dinners with his-" she flipped a hand to gesture. "Special reserve label wine… moonlight swims-"

"Here we go-" Charles interrupted, but really, it was perfect timing. She could tell he was coming from a mile off. "A bottle of my special reserve label."

Frost appeared both surprised he was back and less skeptical of Wanda's 'warnings'.

Getting sloppy there, Frost.

"So, did you guys find something to talk about while I was gone?" Charles asked innocently.

Wanda simply held her nose and ducked beneath the suface of the water.

Something to talk about. Oh Charles, you have  _ no  _ idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine "Piet" would be pronounced almost like "Pete" but with a more... Russian-like sound applied to it, if that makes sense? Also, Emma can't read Wanda's mind because she won't let her, which is suspicious to Emma for sure, but she's not going to bring it up... maybe ;) 
> 
> Charles isn't reading her mind at all, because that's rude (and he feels no need to, because he has no reason to suspect his son switched with his daughter and is now in a completely different country)
> 
> For those of you who might be wondering, yes, I am watching WandaVision (watching it while high off your ass from wisdom tooth surgery is... an experience) and yes, I am currently losing my MIND over the show just like the rest of you guys.
> 
> Lastly, as always, I hope you all have a wonderful week :D


	10. Plotting (Gone Wrong (Maybe))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's a big one! Not in terms of word count, but of plot advancement. 
> 
> The next one is going to pick off right where this left off and the one after that's most likely going to be the BIG big reveal.  
> I was going to extend this, but I wanted to be able to edit and published this on Monday, as per my schedule. Luckily, I'm actually a little ahead this time, as I accidentally skipped too far ahead and wrote over 300 words of a scene that's not going to be relevant until the next chapter (oops!)
> 
> as always, I hope you guys enjoy!

Pietro ran down the hall, (at a normal speed, unfortunately) listening to the house phone ring. His own phone was dead (as toilets are bad for phones) but he'd seen Wanda's caller ID and thought it best to answer. Lord only knew the kind of short temper she could have when made to wait for anything for any amount of time, but he liked that about her. It was another thing they held in common.

"Hello?" He heard Janos answer as he rounded the corner, nearly knocking him over. 

"Wanda?" He heard him say, and responded in kind.

"Yes, Janos?"

Janos fixed him with an amused yet confused smile after jumping in surprise, holding the phone out to him. 

"One moment, please," Janos said, in a puzzled tone. "A Mildred Parker for you. But I swear, it sounds just like your twin."

God, Jesus and Mother Mary almighty, he was _screwed_.

Or, as Janos appeared to be genuinely joking, maybe not. 

"My twin? Very funny, Janos." He took the phone with a smile of his own, waiting for Janos to leave as he looked around frantically for a place to hide, stalling by speaking as British like as possible.

"Oh _Mildred_ , darling, how are you?"

"Hey, how's it going over there?" He heard Wanda ask, and his panic factor started going haywire. 

"Oh, everything's quite lovely here, we're expecting a friend today, but, Mildred- can you- can you hold on for a moment?"

"O-kay, but hurry Piet, I've _got_ to talk to you." Wanda replied, finally slipping back into her old (and actual) British accent.

Seeing as the coat closet in front of him was really the best (and only) place at the moment, he ducked inside, closing the door firmly behind him.

"Okay, now I can talk. Oh my _god,_ papa is _incredible,_ I cannot believe I've lived my _entire_ life without knowing him. He's- he's handsome and fun and smart and I _love_ the buildings he designs."

"But-" Wanda tried to edge in, but Pietro, unfortunately, was on an info dump roll, a habit he had acquired from a lifetime of living with Raven.

" _And_ I got him talking about how he and Dad met, and if you ask me, there's like a _whole_ mess of a-" "Pietro-" "situation we've got-" 

"Pietro, stop! We have a _major_ problem!" Wanda cried, and Pietro was tempted to roll his eyes. "You're going to have to bring Papa up here _immediately."_

" _Immediately?!_ Are you nuts?! I've only had _one day_ with him. I'm just getting to know him. I can't. I won't."

"But this is an _emergency!_ Dad's in love!"

Pietro really _did_ roll his eyes at that. "Get _out_ of here. Wanda, you know Dad doesn't really date anyone seriously right? He mostly has flings, like- the most serious, consistent relationship between _anyone_ in that house is between Raven and Hank, and they're not even dating!"

"But this _is_ serious, Pietro! He grabs her ass and calls her "babe" and waits on her hand and foot!"

"He _does_ _?"_ Pietro was shocked. Dad had never been _that_ into anyone before, but from the sounds of it, Dad was only a hop, skip and a jump away from proposing to the lady.

Which was total crazy talk, of course.

"It's _disgusting,_ and Raven hates her, and I trust her hatred. I mean, for God's sake, she tried to read my mind, so I had to think really hard about that _stupid_ Taylor Swift goat video you're obsessed with, and now its stuck in my head, on top of all this!"

Pietro sighed. "Well, break them up, sabotage her, do whatever you have to do."

"That's _fine,_ but I'm at a slight disadvantage. I only met the man twelve hours ago… Pietro, you've _got_ to get back here to help me! We've _got_ to rush the plan and get Papa and Dad back together _now_." Wanda said, and, uh, no. Nuh-uh. No way, no how.

"Nuh-uh. No way, no _how._ " Pietro said firmly. "I just _got_ here, and I want to spend more time with Papa."

"But we need to get them back together _now,_ there's no _time_ to wait." Wanda responded, ranting, and Pietro, who was kind of pissed at this point, pulled out a hard candy from a coat pocket, popping the candy (mmmm, orange flavored) into his mouth and crinkling the wrapper up by the receiver. 

"Wanda? Wanda, I can't hear you! Wanda, are you there? You're breaking up on me! Are you-"

He slammed the phone down. He had heard her just fine, and he missed her, and Dad, and Hank and Raven, but the thought of going back home now was unacceptable.

With _that_ out of the way, he turned and opened the closet door, immediately tripping over a pair of shoes and sprawling onto the floor… in front of Papa, Janos and Azazel.

_Great._

"What were you doing in the closet?"

"Uhhhh… taking a call?" Pietro answered, as though it were _obvious._ (Even though it really, truly was not.)

"Uh- _huh_." Papa said, and _fuck_ if that wasn't a good sign. "And why would you be taking a call in the closet?"

"Uhhhh… camp… tradition?" Pietro replied, making his way to his feet, and making a show to dust his clothes off.

"Camp tradition." Janos said flatly, and Pietro continued to dig, dig, dig that little grave of his.

"Yup. Camp tradition. Because… of the counselors. We'd play a game call "Phone Tag" which, in hindsight, might've just been the counselors trying to get us to sleep... but the goal of the game was to, uhh, call someone on the campgrounds and get away with holding a whole conversation without being caught in whatever hiding place you were in. And you weren't allowed to whisper or anything, or else you were cheating."

Pietro felt he really, truly deserved a gold medal in lying, because, mother of all miracles, they _bought it_.

Score.

"So…" He finished his grand speech with, after everyone else had calmed down. "Breakfast, anyone?"

\---

Wanda swore viciously in German and French, pacing around the (admittedly nice) bathroom, running her fingers through her hair.

Well then. If Pietro wanted to do his own thing, fine. She'd break Frost and Charles up herself. 

And so the plan began.

Not without hiccups, of course. The first being that Hank looked at her oddly all the time, like she was a puzzle he couldn't figure out. From what Pietro had told her, this behavior was… odd and unexpected, to be sure. She would have to monitor this situation closely.

Hank wasn't the only one suspicious of her behavior. In fact, Raven became more and more demanding of increasing bizzare things, such as her state of cleanliness (of _course_ she brushed her hair in the morning, moon and night. Who didn't?) her appearance, her appetite, her reading habits, even the way she sat down was all subject to interrogation by one (1) Raven Darkholme. The only person who _wasn't_ actively questioning her every move was Charles.

Because he was too preoccupied with Frost, of course. 

_Uggggggh._

And now, Pietro was too preoccupied with spending time with Papa to try and realize that if they couldn't get Papa and Dad back together _quick_ , there was going to be more than trouble to pay. For instance, what would they do if they were stuck swapped like this for months? What if it was _years?_ Jesus, would she even know her own name after that long?

It was thoughts like that and more that kept her up until the early AM, pacing like crazy and three seconds away from tearing her hair out. Must she do _everything_ herself?

(Not that she could _blame_ Pietro, deep down. Not even so deep. She wanted to stay with Dad for a while too. But Frost? She needed to _go._ )

She just hoped Pietro wasn't blowing their cover.

\---

Pietro was having a _blast_.

He got to pull pranks with Lorna, enjoy designing architecture with Papa, and was subject to adoration from Uncle Azazel, Janos and the housekeepers and staff. Life was going _great_. He and Wanda should've switched places years ago. 

Hell, if they couldn't get Papa and Dad together this summer, they could always shoot for the next one. Pietro wasn't fussed.

Wanda could suck it up, as far as he was concerned. She wanted this switch as much as he did, and they could keep up the charade for a long time, he _knew_ it. Plus, it wasn't like Dad was _actually_ serious about getting together with someone. Most of his relationships only lasted a few weeks.

Really, they had nothing to worry about.

\---

Wanda had _so much_ to worry about. Right now though, Dad was talking to her as they walked through the winery, and even _she_ had to admit, she didn't want this to end. Maybe she _could_ stay here for a while longer. She'd just have to plan harder and try a different angle, what with Pietro being absolutely _no help_ at all.

"I've got some important questions for you…" Charles was saying, and oh-boy, if he knew the questions she had for _him_ , she wondered how fast the situation would turn south. 

As fast as Pietro was when twinkies were on the line, probably.

"Well, I've got some for _you,"_ She replied, going over the well-practiced lines she had been mentally reciting since she first arrived. "Dad, I'm almost thirteen, and I know _nothing_ about my other dad, other than what he looks like. I don't know how you got together with him or why you two broke up. And I know even _less_ about my mom."

"Well, actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. In a way." 

"Really?" Wanda asked, but was cut off but the crunching of gravel only feet away.

"Hell- _o_ , Charlie!" Frost interrupted, in a golf cart with her assistant. God, Wanda hated the nickname of "Charlie" for Charles. It didn't fit, like a glove being used as a sock. Uncomfortable, weird, and just plain unnecessary.

Wanda didn't pay much attention to the conversation at first, until a _very_ familiar name popped up.

"Yes, and you'll be happy to hear I've got all of our plans lined up and ready to go, and the contract for the Brotherhood Association all but in the bag!"

Oh. Hell. _No._ She did _not_ just say that.

"The Brotherhood Association?" Wanda asked, trying to play innocent but sweating bullets. No, scratch that, nukes. This was a nuclear situation befitting of replacing something as small as bullets with bombs, because this was _hell_ of a bomb to drop on a conversation.

Yes, this was _bad_.

"Oh, Emma has been vying for the position of associate CEO of a metal working company out in Britain, as she recently acquired a fair amount of shares from the company. It's a very important position to her, and we're all hoping she gets it."

Frost winked as she whispered to her assistant and they drove away. Wanda glared at the retreating golf cart, mad beyond belief.

Alright. Forget the girlfriend status. Forget the whole undercover operation, actually. If Frost was trying to steal her papa's company, she would tear that blonde bitch to shreds with nothing but her fists and teeth, upbringing and mutations be damned.

It was time for Operation: Oblivious.

And the horse riding Charles suggested would be the perfect opportunity.

She got up on Sprout, (who was, to her pleasure, _much_ nicer to Wanda than Frost. Smart horse.) riding through the trails. It was actually very nice, with Charles chatting alongside her, strapped to his mare with a set of leather braces to keep steady.

"Pietro… there's something I've been meaning to tell you." Charles said after a good half hour of riding. Almost long enough to make Wanda drop her guard.

Almost.

"Race you!" She cried, spurring on Sprout into a sprint, leaving Charles with nothing but dust to talk to.

It was probably mean, but she didn't care as she hopped off of Sprout and took off running to the house and pacing in the foyer, speaking very rapidly as she tried to figure out how to stall and solve the whole mess of… whatever _this_ was. 

Much as she was frustrated with him currently, she needed her brother back. She _needed_ Pietro.

God, what a hullabaloo she had gotten herself in.

"I'm so in over my head here, I can't handle this, I can't, I-I just _can't,_ I'm just only one kid-" She leaned against the chair in exhaustion, then jumped back about a foot with she looked into Raven's blue face and golden eyes, only inches from her own.

"You got something you wanna share with the class there, Piet?"

"Oh!" She clutched her chest, holding onto her mother's locket- a focusing point of comfort- as Raven stood, and Wanda continued to back away slightly. "Raven. You gave me a fright."

Which was an understatement, to be sure. However much Raven had heard, it was probably enough to bring the _whole_ operation- or, at this point, operation _s_ , to a grinding, screeching halt.

Still, maybe there was _something_ of the situation left to salvage. If she pulled a page out of Pietro's book, and played it cool.

She tried to smile, but faltered as Raven threw down whatever paperwork she had been working on and put her hands on her hips. "I gave you a _fright?"_

Wanda shrugged slightly and took her hat off, edging her way around the room, _finally_ remembering to switch back to her American accent. "You scared me.. I didn't know you were like- you were in here."

"Are you sure there isn't anything you want to talk to me about?" Raven said, bringing up a now well-versed argument. Wanda tried to glare, but it failed in the face of Raven's interrogating look.

Raven was on a roll, and when she was on a roll, she was _scary_.

"Like… why Hank keeps giving you odd looks and you never bother him in the lab anymore? … Or, why your _appetite's_ changed? Or why all of a sudden, you're beat as a pin, and using expressions such as 'you gave me a fright'?"

Throughout the conversation, Raven circled Wanda, who did her best to back up and away from her. She had quite forgotten how _perceptive_ Raven was, and fuck if it wasn't costing her big time now.

"Raven, I…" Wanda did her best to keep eye contact. It was vital she sell this. "I changed a lot over the summer, that's all."

Even _she_ didn't buy it.

Raven let out a disbelieving snort, shaking her head slightly. "Okay…" She straightened her jacket out, and continued, half talking to herself, half talking to Wanda. "Boy, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you're acting like-"

Raven paused, then shook her head again, walking away. "Forget it… it's impossible."

But it wasn't. It really, really wasn't.

And at this point… well. May as well.

"Almost as if I were who, Raven?" Wanda asked quietly, which made Raven turn back around to face her.

"Nobody…" Raven shot her an unconvincing smile, shaking her hands around. "Nobody. Forget I mentioned it."

"Almost as if I were… Wanda?"

Raven stopped dead in her tracks, freezing, like a deer in headlights. Or Captain America in the water.

Raven took a few, shuffling steps back towards her, disbelief etched in every line of her face. She looked, Wanda realized, both a lot younger and a lot older than she thought.

"... You know about Wanda?"

In for a one-pence, in for a pound. Wanda steeled herself, gripping her hat tightly in her fist and taking a bracing, deep breath.

"I... _am_ Wanda."

Raven gasped, tears springing to her eyes. From behind her, she could hear Charles calling out.

"Piet? Pietro, why did you take off on me like that? I told you, I wanted to talk to you about something." Charles put his hand on her shoulder, trying to both calm himself and hold her in place, then noticed Raven standing in front of them both, blinking back tears.

"Raven, love, _why_ are you looking at him like that?"

"Like what?" Raven cleared her throat slightly, shrugging. Her voice sounded tight as she continued. "I'm not looking at he- him in any special way. I'm looking at him like I've looked at him for thirteen years… since the day sh- _he_ came home from the hospital…"

Raven tilted her head slightly as her tears started to fall, as if she was really seeing Wanda for the first time. "Six pounds, eleven ounces, twenty-one inches long, this is how I always look at the squirt…"

Wanda smiled sadly. She couldn't believe this person, who was previously not a part of her life in any visible way, held some part of her near to her heart.

Raven held her arms up, walking forward. "Can I hug you?" 

Without waiting for an answer, she embraced Wanda warmly, fully, for the first time since she arrived. She felt Raven's sobs shaking them both as she proclaimed that she "was so beautiful! … and so big!"

Wanda hugged her back, feeling happy despite completely blowing her cover. 

Somehow, she knew Raven would have her back in this. Especially when Raven whispered "I _knew_ your name sounded familiar at camp..."

After a few moments, Raven released her grip on Wanda (she was a _lot_ stronger than she looked) and started heading for the kitchen. "I'm gonna make you somethin' special to eat… what would you like? Anything? You know what, it doesn't matter, I'm just gonna whip up everything we've got."

Raven dried her eyes on her jean jacket as she disappeared around the corner, and Charles shot Wanda a puzzled look.

"Ummm… do you know what that was about?" Charles asked. Wanda gave a non-committal shrug. "Nevermind, then…" He wheeled over to the couch and gestured for Wanda to sit, then moved in front of her, a small smile playing on his face. Wanda had a general idea of what he was going to say, and absolutely did _not_ want to encourage the crazy going in in his head.

"Look, Pietro… I've got to ask you… how do you feel about Emma?"

"Emma?" Wanda kicked her feet, turning her obnoxious factor up to twelve. "We-ell… she's tall. And talkative, I guess. She makes a lot of phone calls and wears fancy clothes."

Charles laughed, and Wanda wanted to sigh. "Yes, I do suppose that's all true… but I mean, how do you feel about her living here and being part of the family?"

"I think…" Wanda paused, pretending to mull it over. "I think it's brilliant, dad!"

"Really?" Charles said, seeming genuinely happy. 

Sorry to crush your bubble dad, but Frost isn't going to love you the way Papa does.

"Yeah!" Wanda continued. "I mean, you know how I've _always_ wanted a sister!"

Charles' look of happiness was swiftly replaced with confusion. Oops. How _did_ that happen.

"Pietro, I don't think you understand what I'm saying here-" 

Wanda cut him off, continuing to play pretend to stall the inevitable. "No, I do! You're going to adopt Emma, so Raven and I can have a sister!"

"Pietro, _no._ Look…" Charles scrubbed a hand over his face, musing up his hair. "Emma and I are engaged, Pietro."

Even though she had been expecting it, an angry and shocked "what?!" escaped her mouth before she could stop it. "Dad, _why?_ "

"What on _earth_ do you mean by 'why'? I thought you'd be happy!" 

Wanda started pacing, shaking her head. "I don't _want_ her as my mom! It's like, totally wrong, and- and-" 

English was not enough to convey the depths of her frustration. German, too, was a romantic language at heart.

Well, French it was. There was a reason people asked for it to be pardoned when they swore, after all.

"Pietro, what-" Charles wheeled in front of her. "When did you learn _French_?"

Wanda paused, heaving a breath. "Umm… camp?" Weakly, she added- "You know I'm a fast learner, Dad."

Charles sighed again. "Just… go wash up please."

As Wanda stormed off, she heard Charles ask- "What is _up_ with him?"

And Raven, god bless her, responded with- "Don't look at me, I don't know a thing."

Well, it was nice to have _someone_ on her side in all this, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raven knows guys!! Next up, it's Erik's turn to be shocked, and I'm very excited to write that particular scene.
> 
> I hope y'all are staying safe in between covid and the winter storm (if you live in the northeast/midwest) and I hope yall have a lovely week. tune in next week for more swap shenanigans!


	11. Didja Miss Me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts out in Charles's POV, but then goes back to the twins. The next chapter will be the same, but with Erik. I'm not sure if I'll do Emma's at this point, as we are rapidly approaching the end of this thrilling fic, but either way, prepare for another update once again on Monday! 
> 
> I feel like there might be only three to four chapters left - maybe more, but definitely not less - so prepare for this fic to be completed before or around March

Charles sighed as he parked his chair under the gazebo. He really thought that Pietro would've  _ liked  _ the news of his engagement, after continuously inquiring about his mother. Plus, he had told Charles that he liked Emma, so what  _ was  _ his problem?

Come to think of it, he had been acting rather unusually as of late, ever since he had returned home from camp. Was it early teenage rebellion? Was Charles not paying enough attention to him? Did he just need to sleep more at night?

And why on  _ earth  _ had Raven been crying earlier in the foyer? He'd have to check up on her later, that was for certain. What kind of a brother would he be if he didn't?

… But Pietro hadn't seemed too bothered by it, and Raven hadn't seemed  _ too _ distraught.

But as to what could've possibly caused the minor breakdown, Charles was at a complete loss.

"Hey baby," a soft, sultry voice said, and Charles allowed himself a small smile as Emma walked forward and kissed him. It had been so nice to find another telepath in this strange, strange world. However, it was nothing like it had been with…

… he cut himself off there. No need to go down that path, it was long abandoned. Why not focus on the present instead? The present was filled with his fiancee. The present was filled with nice, gentle touches. 

And kissing. The kissing was nice too. The kissing was very,  _ very  _ nice.

The kissing was nice enough to distract from Emma playing with his shirt. It was  _ not  _ nice enough to distract from the ringing bell Emma kept insisting that he used. While it would be nice to have someone know when he required assistance without resorting to telethapy, it felt silly to use a bell.

That didn't stop Raven from coming outside though, now looking annoyed.

Well, it was an improvement over the tears, at least.

He smiled apologetically over Emma's shoulder as she requested drinks. Raven, ever patient Raven, walked inside to fetch them. He had tried explaining Emma's erratic requests to Raven a few times before, saying she was extremely busy (true) and overly excited about the wedding (also true). Raven still didn't much like her, but Charles held onto the optimistic hope that someday, maybe soon, Raven and Emma would get along swimmingly. And Pietro, too. The outburst had been  _ completely  _ unexpected.

Emma sat on his lap, brushing his hair back. "Why the thinking face, sugar?"

Charles laughed, shaking his head. "Just thinking about Raven and Pietro, that's all. Pietro… didn't really take the news of our engagement very well."

"Mmm." Emma said, placing another kiss on his cheek. "Want me to talk to him, one mutant to another?"

"If you don't mind, love. That would be wonderful." 

It really would be. Maybe Pietro just needed to spend more time with Emma and warm up to her. Then he'd come around, Charles was  _ sure  _ of it.

Emma stood up, stretching for a moment. "Keep my drink cool… and your pants on, big boy." She winked at him, sashaying away. 

That woman really was something.

\---

Wanda sat on the swing set, kicking at the sand under her feet and watching the clouds of dust puff up and fall back down to the ground.

Why oh  _ why  _ did Charles have to get engaged  _ now? _ Eight weeks, at  _ most,  _ of a romance was a  _ very  _ short amount of time to have a relationship, unless Charles had been hiding it from Pietro, and now her.

And she really,  _ really  _ did not want Frost as a step-mum. That lady was  _ not  _ maternal material.

"Knock knock… can I join you?" Wanda heard the lady of the hour ask, and she shrugged before nodding her head.

"Sure."

Frost climbed under the wooden roof and sat opposite to her, gripping the swing as if she didn't trust it. Which was weird, because everyone knew that Raven had built the outdoor furniture, and she could do things with nails that would probably impress even her Papa.

"I'm… guessing the news of our little engagement came as a shock to you." Frost said, in what one, if one were a fool, might assume to be a sympathetic tone.

"Basically." Wanda replied, not really meeting Frost's eyes and pushing herself on the swing.

"You know… I remember what it was like to be twelve." Frost continued, smiling. Like a shark. A very hungry, mean shark. "I had my first bow at twelve. It's a  _ wonderful  _ age, you're just starting to feel like an adult, and soon… believe it or not, you'll understand what it's like to be in love."

Fat chance of that lady, but alright. Guess you've got to be told that.

"Me? … I don't think so. I only just got my twelve year old molars two months ago."

Frost scoffed, leaning back in her seat. "Well, take it from someone who got her molars very early in life… being in love is a  _ fantastic  _ mystery that- that takes a man and a woman-"

Wanda cut her off, because first off, ew, mushy feelings, and second off, you're dating a man who is very openly bisexual, lady. He flies a pride flag on the top if his house, for Christ's sake. Love is not  _ just  _ between a man and a woman.

And here, at least, was an opportunity to try and knock Frost out of the picture.

"I don't mean to be all… jerky when you're trying to be all mushy and everything, but I know what mystery my dad sees in you."

"You do?"

Why the curious tone, Emma Frost? Aren't you a telepath? Oh wait, I'm blocking you. Take  _ that _ .

"You're young and beautiful and sexy, and  _ hey, _ the guy's only human... or, well, mutant. But if you ask me, marriage is supposed to be based on something more than just  _ sex _ , right?"

"Boy…" Emma huffed, laughing without sounding amused in the slightest. "Your father underestimates you."

"But you won't." Wanda sat back in her own seat, copying Frost's casual pose to a T. "Will you, Emma Frost?"

"Being young and beautiful is not a crime, you know. And for  _ your _ 411, I  _ adore  _ your father. He's  _ exactly  _ the kind of man I always planned on marrying."

Emma pulled out a cigarette and lit it in a fancy, fluttering motion with a gold-plated lighter, taking a long, dramatic drag. "This  _ is  _ the real deal, honey. And nothing you do is going to come between us. Hate to break it to you, angel, but you are no longer the only apple of Charles Xavier's eye."

She took another drag, and said in a spiteful voice. "Get over it."

Aww. That was cute. It's like she thought she had a chance.

"If this  _ is  _ the real deal, then… my dad's money has nothing to do with why you want to marry him, right? Or the influence he could have on that position you want, with the Brotherhood Association?"

"Okay,  _ puss." _ Ohhhh. She had struck a nerve  _ and  _ gold. "You listen, and you listen good. I am marrying your father in two weeks, whether you like it or not. So I suggest you do not tangle with me anymore."

Frost tapped her temple with her free hand twice, face filled with silent fury and annoyance. "You are in  _ way  _ over your head. Is that clear?"

Wanda hummed, leaning forward. "Crystal."

\---

Pietro sat at the table happily, listening to the conversation at hand. He certainly wasn't feeling any guilt after hanging up on his sister, nor was he missing the meals they had shared together in their cabin, or at their table, instead of sitting surrounded by strangers thousands of miles from home.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed. It had been going off for some time, but Pietro assumed it was just the updates and notifications for his plethora of games. It probably wasn't anything important.

Probably.

They were currently eating dinner in the casual dining room, on the third of seven courses. (Which, food, yum. But also, a guy just wants some cheap chili and mac every now and then, y'know?) Papa was sipping on some clearly killer wine, Lorna was flinging peas at the window (strange kid) and Uncle Azazel was holding pleasant conversation with just about everyone.

"Papa, can I try some of your wine?"

Everyone at the table laughed, and Papa handed over his glass, albeit reluctantly, warning Pietro in a sing-song voice that "I don't think you're going to like it."

Well. Okay. If you wanna be like that.

Swilling the wine around in the glass, he watched the tannins race down, sniffing the wine in the particular way Dad had taught him before taking a small sip and considering his answer.

"Hmmm… full body, not too tart, though I do like mine a little more sweet… hint of cherries, hint of-" Pietro took another sip. "Oh, that's peach, very nice pairing, including the strawberries and raspberries in the mix, of course. Though, the peaches were picked a  _ hair  _ out of season- that would account for the slight bitterness. The bouquet… mmm, a little too  _ robust _ for my liking, but overall, not bad, not bad at all. "

Everyone at the table laughed harder, and Papa took his glass back. "Since when were you such a little wine connoisseur?"

Pietro winked, grinning with lots of teeth and watched Janos hurry inside the room, clutching a piece of paper with a blue blob on it, whispering to Erik. Pietro leaned out of his seat to see a drawing of Hank and the word "HELP" in Wanda's handwriting.

Unfortunately, he leaned so far out of his seat to see this that he completely fell out with a (manly) shriek.

Lorna blew a raspberry at him. "Stupid-head."

Pietro blew one back, leaping to his feet. Everyone was staring at him, but now was not the time for embarrassment. 

Hank was their emergency signal, and if Wanda had faxed him a picture of him  _ and  _ 911, well... first off, he didn't know how to use the fax machine, so that was kinda impressive. But more than that, something  _ bad _ had happened to Wanda, and he had to check on her.

He grinned slightly, pulling his still buzzing phone out and shook it. "Ummm… havetotakeacallgottadash!"

And with that, he left the room.

Pietro had a fun fact, which was connected to this whole mess- he had ADHD. (Wanda did too, so he managed to get his meds while overseas. Score.) This wasn't a problem, at least not most of the time, but it gave him this unfortunate thing called 'executive dysfunction', which was a lot like erectile dysfunction for your brain, in that it was always failing him when it was time to shine and Do The Brain Things. 

It meant that if he wanted to go to sleep at twelve, he'd fall asleep at four in the morning after binging several tv shows and making approximately a million pinterest boards that he'd never again view once made, because he  _ needed  _ pictures of a very specific aesthetic to keep him occupied as he was binge-watching. If he was hungry, he'd either  _ have  _ to eat literally immediately or he'd forget for a full day, causing him to faint from low blood sugar and causing Raven to bestow him with the moniker of 'little Victorian lady'.

All this was to say that Pietro  _ meant _ to charge his phone earlier, he really did, but watching the little number trickle down caused a sense of dread and so he just… kept putting off.

Until it was dead in his hands, with Wanda's  _ 67 missed texts _ being the last thing he saw light up on the screen before it was taken over by the empty battery of doom.

Great. Absolutely fan-fucking-tastic.  _ Smashing, _ as the Brits would say.

So time for plan B- use a house phone.

Use a house phone and get eavesdropped on, nice  _ try  _ Lorna, but that hair gleams like algae in the summer sun.

So, he did what he always did when faced with an emergency situation. A fallback that had never failed him, not once.

He ran.

He'd seen a bunch of phone booths around, and he assumed they were just like payphones, right? So all he had to do was find one right-

There. Perfect.

Pietro slammed the door behind him, dropping some change he had collected (and planned on taking home, but this was more important) into the coin slot, and waited for the automated voice to ask where he was calling to as he punched in his home number.

"Um, yes? I'd like to place a collect call to America, please?"

"One moment." came the automated response, and he stood and tapped his foot at a blinding speed, waiting for Wanda to  _ pick up pick up pick uuuuuuuup. _

"Hello?" Wanda said nervously, one second later, and Pietro felt his anxiety start to  _ skyrocket. _ What on earth kind of trouble had she gotten into  _ now? _

"What's  _ up? _ " he asked, slightly out of breath. It was a lot harder to run like a normal person than it was for him to speed away, and he was so busy trying not to freak out as a million scenarios of what could possibly be wrong played through his head that he almost missed Wanda's reply.

"Pietro, I'm  _ desperate.  _ Dad's getting married!"

"What do you  _ mean, _ 'getting married'?" Pietro though his dad had to be out of his  _ mind. _ He was not only getting together with someone Pietro didn't even know, but he was also ruining the plans for who he was  _ actually  _ supposed to be marrying!

"I  _ mean,  _ black tie, white gown, the whole enchilada." Wanda said miserably.

" _ What? _ " No  _ way _ this was true. It  _ had  _ to be a mistake of some kind. He'd only known this Frost chick for like… eight weeks! Maybe more? Possibly  _ less?! _

"The wedding's in two weeks, so if there's  _ any  _ hope of getting Papa and Dad back together, we've got to do it fast, and I mean  _ really  _ fast. Faster than 'Raven trying to toss you in the lake and you speeding off to avoid it' kind of fast." 

"Okay, so…" Pietro tried to think, ignoring the man waiting to use the phone booth next. "Papa and I are going out to the theater tonight, I- … I'll drop the bomb on him, first thing in the morning!"

Wanda sounded beyond relieved when she spoke again. "Okay, thanks. And Pietro? … Hurry!"

"Okay, I will, Wanda. Love you, bye."

"Love you too." And with that, Pietro hung the phone back up, perhaps more aggressively than he needed to, but this whole situation was very stressful, and he was very sorry, but a phone being subject to a little more manhandling than usual was not high on his priorities list.

He shoved the door back open, intending to run straight back home, but accidentally hit the man who had been waiting by the door.

"Oops, excuse me sir… uhhh… uh-oh."

"Uh-oh. Indeed."

It was Uncle Azazel outside the door. Because of _course_ it was. Because Pietro Django and Wanda Marya Maximoff were literally the only two people in the entire world to have luck this _incredibly_ terrible and right now, it was Pietro's turn to watch the shit hit the fan.

"Now," Uncle Azazel continued. "What's say you and I take a little stroll in the park, eh young one?"

"O-okay." Pietro said quietly, because really, what other choice did he have?

Azazel smiled kindly (or as kindly as one who looked literally like a hornless Satan could) and put his arm gently around Pietro's shoulders, guiding him to a pathway in the park.

"Now then… what's this all about?"

"Well, it's a long story." Pietro said nervously, but Azazel just swept an arm out to gesture, still smiling.

"Well, it's a very big park, and we've got plenty of time, you know."

Aw, what the hell. He was going to drop the bomb on papa soon… may as well fess up to  _ someone  _ before that.

"So, uhh… well, first of all… I'm Pietro, not Wanda."

Uncle Azazel helped with a plan, after that. Good man, he was.

Forty-three minutes later, Pietro stood in front of his Papa's bedroom, dressed for bed but  _ definitely  _ not capable of sleeping anytime soon. He could hear him speaking French to someone on the phone, pacing around his room just like Pietro did when he used a phone.

He held Cuppy tightly, waiting for the right moment to walk in. Sure, maybe he was too old for stuffed animals, one could say. If one was an idiot, of course. Stuffed animals have no age limit, pea-brain.

Pietro waited for so long, in fact, by the time he opened the door, Erik was sitting in his bed, making notes and sketches on some paper.

"Just do it, sweet-pea." Uncle Azazel said behind him, and he did  _ not _ jump, that was just an itch on his back he was trying to scratch.

Uncle Azazel patted him on the back, and Pietro took that as he cue. Fuck if he spoke French so he couldn't tell if Erik was almost done talking on the phone, but either way, he was greeted with a soft, warm smile that instantly made his chest feel tight and his eyes burn as he slowly approached the bed.

Erik hung up the phone, rearranging his papers and switching back to English. "Hello darling, come on in. I've just got to finish this sketch up and then FedEx it off to Paris, and then how about you and I go out to lunch and getting lost in Howard's, hmm?"

Pietro climbed under the covers, letting Erik kiss his head as he spoke the words he had been mentally going over for almost an hour now.

"I'm sorry Papa, but I- … I have to go out of town today."

"Oh, you have to go out of town?" Erik pushed his glasses up, turning to look at Pietro. "And where, may I ask, are you going?"

There was a note of amusement in his voice and a laugh at the end of his sentence, but nothing about the situation was funny to Pietro.

To prevent himself from breaking down and bawling in front of his Papa, he dove under the covers and hid his face.

"Wanda?" Erik started poking and tickling him, still laughing. "Wanda!"

Pietro struggled to keep his voice even as he responded. It would be downright  _ impossible _ to get any words out if he started crying now, he knew it. 

"That's- that's where I have to go, I have to go see Wanda!"

"I see, and where might my Wanda be?" Erik asked, and Pietro blurted it out, not even bothering to keep up with the charade of being British anymore.

"In Napa... with her father, Charles Xavier."

He heard Erik gasping in shock, and clutched Cuppy tighter.

God, he had ruined  _ everything _ .

Erik pulled the covers off, and looked him in the eyes. He wondered if he had noticed, before now, that they were blue and not brown.

"You're not Wanda." It wasn't a question, but it still deserved an answer.

"That would be correct."

Erik's eyes filled with sudden tears, and for a moment, Pietro really  _ was  _ convinced he had majorly fucked up on like, an unfixable level, until a smile followed approximately half a millisecond later.

It may as well have been an eternity, but goddamn was it a relief to see.

"You're Pietro?"

He sat up, and nodded once. "I am."

Erik covered his mouth with his hand, and Pietro continued, unable to stop the words coming out of his mouth, but feeling a deep sense of relief as he spoke.

"Wanda and I met up at camp, and we- we decided to switch places."

Erik looked like he was seeing Pietro in a whole new light, which was probably entirely fair. He  _ had  _ pretended to be someone else completely before now.

"And I'm  _ really _ sorry, but I've never seen you before, and I've dreamt of meeting you my whole  _ life _ , and… Wanda felt the exact same way about Dad, so… so we sorta just- switched lives."

Erik reached out and touched his shoulder, very gently, and it was all Pietro could do to finish.

"And… I hope you're not mad at me, because I love you so  _ much  _ and I just hope.. that one day you could love me as me, and not as Wanda."

Erik pulled him forward, hugging him so tightly he felt like his ribs were going to break.

He wouldn't move away if the world was ending this very second.

"Oh, darling…" Erik kissed his forehead again. "I've loved you your whole life."

Pietro hugged him back, kissing his arm, since that was the closest part he could reach.

A sobbing sound carried out across the room, and Pietro and Erik looked up to see Janos crying unabashedly into Azazel's shoulder, face absolutely _soaked_ in tears.

"I've never been so happy in my entire life," was the only response he gave, before breaking out into a fresh round of sobs, clutching tightly to a strangely unbothered Azazel, who gently closed the doors, presumably to give Pietro and Erik some privacy to  _ actually  _ catch up, but they still caught the loud voice from down the hall.

There Lorna stood, carrying a plastic bucket of snails in her tiny, grubby hands.

"WAIT… YOU'RE NOT  _ WANDA?" _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have a good grasp on Lorna's character yet, so I'm just slipping her in here and there. In my head, she's a lot like Lilo from Lilo and Stitch - a wacky kid who has odd habits but is absolutely adorable.
> 
> The scene with Martin crying into Grandfather's shoulder never fails to make me laugh, and I hope I conveyed the hilarity of it to y'all


	12. What Is This, a Fashion Show?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the shortest chapter yet, and I apologize for it, but the next one is definitely going to be a lot longer
> 
> As promised, this starts out in Erik's pov! And as a treat- next chapter you'll get a peek into Emma's thoughts on the whole situation.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

After a few long minutes filled with disbelief and hugging, a small voice piped up from within the massive bear hug he was giving.

"I guess you gotta switch us back now, huh." Erik felt Wanda- no,  _ Pietro,  _ say into his shoulder, and he regrettably pulled away to nod, clearing his throat.

"Well, technically… you belong to Charles, and Wanda belongs to me."

"His and his kids," Pietro said, then sighed. "No offense Papa, but this arrangement… it kinda sucks."

Erik felt a small bit of his heart break as he nodded again. "I agree… it totally sucks, to quote that  _ awful  _ slang you've been sporting lately."

A small smile pulled at the corners of Pietro's mouth, and Erik felt slightly less terrible as he wiped away first his tears, then his own.

"Then I say… let's go to Napa to see Dad and Wanda, and work this whole thing out."

A simple enough plan, and who knew, maybe it wouldn't be all that bad seeing Charles again.

So, once again, he agreed.

(Which in hindsight felt like the biggest mistake since that awful flub two years ago that had caused  _ jailings _ , but we won't talk about that.)

"I say you're right." Erik cupped his son's- his _son's-_ face gently, brushing a few stray strands of hair back. "Not to worry, _liebing,_ I'll take care of everything. You're not to worry, okay? It'll all be smooth-sailing from here, I promise."

And wasn't that the least he could do? Take care of the flights and arrangements, and make Pietro's last few hours in Britain as happy and stress-free as possible?

He brushed the bridge of Pietro's nose with a light touch, a gesture that had never failed to bring a smile to his Wanda's face.

And it certainly didn't fail him with his Pietro, if that grin and bone-crushing hug were anything to go by.

So really, he was doing quite well, all things considered, and he was absolutely sure he could handle this.

A mere two hours later, Erik felt hysterical, slightly, possibly, maybe, running around his room like a love-struck ten year old girl with a cigarette in his mouth and his shirt half buttoned. 

Not exactly how he imagined he would be when he planned to see Charles again, to be sure. He walked into his closet, grabbed a pair of shades and walked right out, opening the door with more force than was strictly necessary.

"I can't handle this," he confessed to Janos, running a hand through his hair. God, what had he been  _ thinking  _ when he promised both his son  _ and  _ himself this was going to be easy? He was crazy. He was, at long last, losing the very last of his precious, precious marbles.

He hastily grabbed one of the many jackets Janos was holding and started pacing around his room, looking for a lighter, a beer, and the last of his sanity. 

(Not necessarily in that order.)

"I mean, I haven't heard from Charles Xavier in- in over eleven years now," Erik explained. "And suddenly I'm flying halfway across the world to-"

He paused for a moment and threw his jacket down on his bed as his mind  _ finally  _ caught up to his mouth, wishing desperately that this was all just one big, shitty nightmare. "I'm not mature enough for this!" 

He walked back to Janos to grab more clothes, not pausing in his ranting. "If the man didn't make me so  _ nuts,  _ I'd still be married to him. I mean, we came up with this whole arrangement so that we'd never have to see each other again."

He threw his second jacket down in his suitcase, placed his still unlit cigarette in his mouth, and spun around to face one of his oldest friends. "I mean,  _ look at me,  _ Janos. Have you  _ ever  _ seen me like this?"

Janos started to respond, but Erik immediately cut him off and walked back into his closet for more supplies. "Don't answer that."

\---

Pietro walked by Erik's bedroom, fully dressed and packed, just in time to hear his papa's voice echoing off his closet walls.

"I mean, what if he doesn't even recognize me? … oh, don't answer that question either. "

Pietro grinned- he couldn't help it. He had never seen such a normally composed adult in such a state of agitated anticipation before, and hoo-boy was it a  _ delight  _ to witness.

"Pietro said he was a- a hunk," Erik continued faintly, as Pietro watched him try on a hat. "Well, he… he was always good-looking… Had a smile that could make even me go weak at the knees, if you could imagine that."

Pietro decided now was more than a perfect time to pop into his Papa's room, clutching his backpack in hand and wearing a yellow button up and shorts.

"I'm all ready, Papa!"

"Great, me too." Erik answered with optimism that did not fit the current disheveled look he was sporting. He caught Pietro's look of doubt and corrected himself, pulling his hat off to reveal a mess of hair underneath. "... almost."

Pietro looked around at the clothes thrown haphazardly everywhere, the curtain rod askew… it looked like a tornado had gone through the room- or a Pietro. "Papa, your suitcase is… basically empty!"

"Oh, yeah… right. Ummm… did you speak to your father, dear?"

Ah  _ shit _ . That would be a big fat  _ no, _ he had talked with his  _ sister- _ but Papa wasn't a telepath and Janos wasn't a snitch, so it was cool _. _ "Uhh… yeah! Yeah, yeah, I just hung up with him, actually." Pietro grinned, hoping it looked convincing. "He said he's really anxious to see you!"

Unfortunately, this seemed to only serve to send his papa further down the spiral of insanity.

"Anxious-nervous like he's completely dreading this, or like… anxious-excited, like he's looking forward to it?" Jesus Christ shitting apple pies dude,  _ chill out. _ Geez. He could practically see the many cogs in his Papa's head turning in a bundle of anxious-stress. 

So it was probably best to try and de-escalate, just a little bit.

"Anxious-excited, definitely."

"Oh," Erik responded, apparently relieved if that smile was anything to go off of. Pietro continued, almost  _ reciting _ the most last-minute of all last-minute plans he had ever concocted.

"He said he'd meet us tomorrow at noon at the Stafford Hotel, in San Francisco."

Dad, he thought feverishly, you  _ better  _ pull through and work with me here, you're friendly with everyone, please be nice to your ex-husband.

Erik's nervous laugh pulled him out of his thoughts. "My, my, my, that's  _ incredibly  _ soon, isn't it? Well… why don't you run downstairs and gather up our tickets from your Uncle Az, while I finish up here."

"Okay!"  _ Yes! _ He was finally free to run to his heart's desire, to whizz and whir wherever he pleased. He walked out of the room with a surge of happiness that was somewhat ruined by Janos following him, whispering "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

Pietro scowled, putting a finger to his lips, and making a cutthroat gesture as he shushed him. Just because it was  _ true  _ didn't mean it needed to be  _ said. _

"Oh! Uh, Janos-" Pietro literally paused with one foot over the stairs to try and catch the conversation. "I have a really ridiculous, sort of childish request to make. Janos, you know you're more than a butler to me, you're more like a- a lovable brother who just happens to wait in us, and I- anyway, I was wondering if there was some way, if you-"

"Accompany you on the trip?" Pietro heard Janos reply with, cutting off Erik before his rant could continue. "Make it a bit easier for you?"

" _ Would  _ you Janos? Thank you so  _ much,"  _ Erik sounded more relieved than Pietro had expected. "And- and you don't even have to come as our butler, just as a friend."

"Sir, I'd be honored."

Pietro slowly moonwalked his way back to Erik's room to see what was going on, just in time to see Janos approaching Erik's closet.

"And may I say, as a friend… if I was seeing  _ my  _ ex after many years, and I had  _ your _ physic…" Janos disappeared for a moment, then returned with a truly  _ terrible  _ shirt, one with no sleeves and was almost  _ definitely  _ spandex. 

"I'd wear this baby." Janos finished dramatically. "You'll  _ kill  _ it."

And I, Pietro though, would toss myself into a trashcan if I ever wore something like that. The red, the purple? Just pick a color!

He ran downstairs after that. No need to blind himself with his papa's piss poor fashion choices.

Uncle Azazel and Lorna saw them off as they left for the airport. Lorna was enraged at being left behind at first, until Pietro helpfully pointed out that she'd have the whole house to herself for a while. After that, she couldn't have tried harder to get them to leave.

Azazel hugged Pietro, stepping back and ruffling his hair. Erik was behind them, trying to play a game of Tetris with their luggage.

"You'll come over for Thanksgiving, right?" Pietro asked. He'd grown fond of the (strange) other half of his family, and Thanksgiving with them was bound to be nothing short of a good time.

Azazel grinned, handing him a piece of candy. "Oh, I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

Sweet. Not  _ just  _ the candy.

"Pietro! It's time to go now." Erik said, finally able to close the trunk of the car- well, the limousine actually, again. Because Papa was a man of mystery and wealth and liked going places in  _ style _ .

Speaking of style...

What. The  _ fuck. _ Was Janos wearing.

Pietro took back every single complaint he had made about this whole endeavor. This was, hands down, by far and away, the best idea he had ever had in his entire  _ life. _

He gleefully hopped in the car and waved goodbyes it pulled out, kicking his feet in nervous anticipation.

Nervous- _ excited  _ anticipation.

\---

Wanda couldn't  _ wait  _ to go to the hotel. 

Charles was animated, excitedly going through many outfits in his wardrobe as Raven watched, amused, and Hank, who took cues from Steve Jobs and wore the same thing everyday, just shook his head in confusion. The house, which was normally pretty tidy, went through a brutal period where it looked like a cyclone had run through it. Or Pietro, judging from the state of his room when she first arrived.

Emma, thankfully, wasn't there to bear witness to the disaster areas- she had gone ahead to the hotel a full day before the rest of them were scheduled to leave, giving Wanda a blissful,  _ blissful  _ twenty-four Emma Frost free hours. 

So life was good.

Life was even better now that Raven knew- she included Wanda in on more inside jokes and kept Charles and Hank busy with the planning to keep them off her tail, and Wanda was very grateful for it. Wanda had even made Raven a drawing with holographic sticky paper, so that it would shimmer just like her powers. 

Raven immediately hung it up on her wall, declaring it a masterpiece, and Wanda had felt a sense of quiet, content pride. She would miss this house, with its crazy decor and even crazier residents, but Uncle Azazel had assured her that, if push came to shove, he'd fly over to California with her for Thanksgiving.

Maybe if she and Pietro were annoying enough, they could do the same for their birthday, too. It was sooner, anyhow.

Cutting back to the present. they were piled in Charles's "nice" car, which made no sense because the pickup truck was so much better and Wanda was allowed to stick her head out the window on the freeway, as opposed to now, where she had to sit with the AC blasting and her head very much inside the car. Charles had wanted her to look nice for when she met Frost's parents, but if it were up to Wanda, she would've shown up to the whole affair in a trash bag and crocs, instead of the white suit Charles had forced her in.

(She loved her dad- she did  _ not  _ love his fiancee, and thus, she did not want to look like a classy bitch right now.)

Maybe if she tried hard enough, she'd be able to slip into something else soon enough. Like a tshirt with a hand flipping the bird, for instance.

Perhaps they sold that at a store near the Stafford Hotel.

A girl could dream, you know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind, Wanda is petty about everything and Pietro is only petty about big stuff, so right now she kinda feels like raining hellfire upon Emma while sipping from a Mcflurry and Pietro just wants the Mcflurry part of the deal lol
> 
> See you all next week with a new chapter, and thank you so much for the kind comments! We're nearing the end of this fic folks and as much as I love it, I'm gonna be a little glad when it's over- and I might have a new fic coming out after ;) stay tuned!


	13. Meetings and Greetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, Emma's POV is finally here! (As well as everyone else's including the kitchen sink)
> 
> Writing this chapter was a lot of fun, but I think the one after this might be one of my favorites. 
> 
> The next chapter is also going to have quick cuts of different povs, just to fully encapsulate the sheer chaos of the scenes + situations. We're really getting to the meat of the story now folks, only a few chapters left to go!

Emma clutched her father's arm, laughing at one of his many jokes as she all but dragged him and her mother down the hall. 

She wasn't really paying attention to the words he was saying, of course- like many things that came with being a Frost, everything was for show. She could reliably recognize when a punchline had been made, and that was all that mattered.

It was why she liked Charles so much- he was _actually_ funny, _actually_ paid attention to her, even if his son was a spawn of Satan sent straight from hell to torment her. But that was no matter, she'd break him _easily_. 

She'd do anything to keep her sweet Charles and leave her apathetic family behind, preferably in a gutter. She could deal with a twelve year old, an annoying sister-in-law, and a fursuit masquerading as a scientist. She could.

"Now, be _nice,_ daddy. He's everything you've ever wanted and more in a man."

Her father laughed, false reassurances failing from his lips as Charles wheeled forward… followed by Raven, Hank and of course, _Pietro._

"Oh great… he brought the whole gang." Emma said sarcastically, letting her parents know _this_ wasn't her plan. Charles had never mentioned anything about bringing his _entire_ family to meet hers… but then again, maybe it should've been expected. He was obsessed with them, after all.

Damn that cute face though. She couldn't stay mad at him for long, never could.

(The rest of his family was _absolutely_ free rein though.)

"Hi, darling." Emma tugged Charles forward by the arm, sashaying elegantly as she kissed him. The rest of them, well…

"Pietro, Raven... and Hank! What in the _world_ are you doing here? I'd thought you'd be back home, doing…" she frowned slightly, making sure to seem extra confused. "... your… lab work."

Emma leaned forward toward Charles again, pretending to go in for another kiss. "Honey, Hank? At the hotel?"

Charles shrugged, that damn, cheesy smile on his lips. "Raven and Pietro begged him to come."

Uggggh. "Awww, such sweethearts." 

She offered a hand to shake to a half-distracted Hank. 

In her defense, she _had_ only been trying to be polite. Instead, she got a growl, a sneeze, and a lot more blue fur on her white dress than she had originally bargained for. 

She _heard_ Raven laugh and say "nice one, Hank," before raising her voice to _properly_ address Emma. "So, Emma, these the folks?"

So uncivilized. And stupid, apparently. But Charles loved her, so Emma could… tolerate her until she bought that firm and made Raven work a janitorial job until she was old and grey.

Pulling herself out her daydream, ( _not_ fantasy) she put on a smile for all to see as she faced her parents and held Charles's hand. "Yes, you all _finally_ meet. This is my fiancee and love of my life, Charles Xavier." 

Charles shook her mother's hand, making even what would normally be an awkward and stilted exchange seem pleasant.

"Hello Charles, I'm so _pleased_ to meet you. I'm Victoria… but you can call me Vicky."

Before her mother could make any more comments, Emma swiftly introduced the others to her parents.

"And this is Charlie's _adorable_ son, Pietro. This entire hotel meetup was his idea, I'll have you know."

Charles was beaming with pride, but an unfortunate side-effect of being a telepath meant that Emma could tell that the pride was more directed at Pietro than _her._

But it might buy her some brownie points later, to be sure.

"How are you, young man?" Her father said over her mother's shoulder. "We've heard nothing but good things about you."

"Hell- _o,_ pet" her mother crooned, and Emma almost felt sorry for the twirp. "You can call me 'Aunt Vicky!'"

Pietro had a look of ill-disguised disgust on his face. Poor kid. He'd never catch a break from her child-obsessed mom.

Well. Karma _was_ known to be a bitch.

\---

Pietro looked at the flags hanging up around the entrance of the Hotel Stafford as they pulled in and parked. Janos, (who was wearing a _leather jacket_ ) hopped out of the car first, opening the door for Erik and Pietro.

Erik promptly dropped his leg into Janos's awaiting hands, and Pietro heard Janos sigh. Whether it was because he had received a leg instead of a hand, or because his papa wasn't wearing his _shoes,_ Pietro didn't know. He wasn't a telepath, after all.

"Other end, sir."

"Oops." Erik replied, sounding not sorry at all as he dropped his free hand into Janos's, swaying on his feet and finishing the last of the whiskey he had bought on the plane. Pietro knew the man drank, but it was almost impressive, watching him get drunk _after_ three beers, two large glasses of wine, four shots of vodka over lunch, and now his whiskey on the car drive.

Erik smacked his lips together and threw the empty bottle behind him without care, holding his shoes in one hand. Janos barely caught the bottle, but Erk didn't notice.

"That was a _great_ flight, wasn't it? I mean, it was so quick."

"I've never seen you quite so… thirsty before, sir." Janos replied, in lieu of an actual response.

Erik leaned heavily on Pietro as he _finally_ put his shoes back on. "Well, would you believe Janos, darling, I've never tasted vodka before this trip."

"Could've fooled me, sir." Janos said flatly, and Pietro sighed as the two adults walked inside ahead of him, Erik trying to get Pietro to follow by slurring out "C'mon, let's rock 'n roll."

"I am in such _major_ trouble here," he said to no one in particular.

\---

Charles rolled along as Emma spoke a mile a minute, and Hank, behind her, was currently rambling facts about the hotel, it's history, and the history of hotels in general. 

"If the hotel can do it, I think that room will be _perfect_ for the wedding!" Emma gestured around her, leading the pack, so to speak, around. "It's not too big, not too cramped, and it's not that I don't love the idea of having the wedding at the house, I just think that this would be _amazing._ " 

Hank ran off to examine a chandelier and Raven and Pietro followed, presumably to make sure he didn't try and _climb_ the thing. Charles was so _glad_ they were having fun together, that this day was coming along splendidly.

"So, I've already checked us in," Emma continued. "Why don't we… go upstairs, freshen up, then rendezvous for lunch?"

"Sounds great!" Vicky chirped, as Richard leaned forward and kissed his daughter's cheek. 

"We'll meet you at the bar in ten, okay?" Richard shook Charles's hand firmly, and Emma beamed.

"Sounds perf!" Emma said, chipper as ever, leading Charles away. "Sweetheart, now that we're here… why don't we go check out the honeymoon suite? I bet it is to _die_ for."

Well, with a promise like that, and a kiss to sweeten the deal, who was he to say no?

\---

Wanda didn't know _how_ she ended up on Hank-wrangling duty with Raven, but she would've liked more of a _warning_ from Pietro about how enthusiastic the man could get. Trying to follow him was like trying to herd kittens away from boxes, and an unexpected run-in with a bellhop and a server meant that there was a brief moment where Hank went completely out of her sight.

"Hank, hang _on!"_ Wanda heard Raven hiss. Hank actually _did_ pause, until he ran into the elevator.

"Pietro! There you are, did you know-"

"Hank!" Wanda heard Pietro- the _real_ Pietro- cry, and watched Hank scoop him up as he had often done with her in the last few days, content to talk history.

Wanda briefly locked eyes with Pietro, and she heard Raven gasp behind her as the three of them shared a surprised look. Hank, oblivious to _all_ of this, began explaining the science behind elevators just as the door shut.

Well, if _Pietro_ was here, then that meant-

"Excuse me, did you find a beige- ah, thank you."

Wanda whipped around and almost slammed into Erik.

"Papa!" She cried, so startled she slipped back into her old accent. Erik just grinned at her widely, not _quite_ focused on her.

" _Liebing,_ you didn't have to wait for me, I could've found the room by myself." 

Wanda fanned her face as Erik spoke, practically becoming drunk off the alcoholic fumes wafting off him.

"And, uh, also I need to get a little fresh air." Well, _that_ was obvious. Erik patted her shoulder as Raven pretended to be invisible. "Go on, sweetie, I'll meet you upstairs."

Wanda watched Erik stumble away, feeling seventeen different emotions at once.

"I like that jacket by the way, were you wearing that the whole flight?-"

"Papa, watch out!" Wanda facepalmed and squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment as Erik almost collided with a florist holding a large bouquet. She watched her papa stagger off and out of sight as she turned to face Raven, disbelief in her voice.

"He's _drunk!_ He's never had more than one glass of wine in his entire _life,_ and today, of _all days,_ he decides to show up totally _shitfaced."_

"Yeah, well…" Raven began hastily leading her towards the stairs, looking alert and on-guard. "Just do what you dad says and meet him upstairs."

Wanda almost laughed, until she saw Raven's face. Then they _both_ laughed.

\---

Erik wandered around, slightly dizzy. Maybe he had drank _too_ much? But it was okay, Janos could watch Pietro for him while he sobered up. 

He made his way as elegantly as he could to the front doors, overhearing a tall, blonde woman whispering about 'do not disturb signs' to the handsome man in a wheelchair beside her.

Oh, a do not disturb sign sounded nice, actually. Once he got some nice air, a low-down was in order, for _sure_.

He walked past the elevator just as the couple walked in, and caught a good look at the man's face.

There, in the elevator, was the (previous) love of his life, Charles Xavier.

He looked so _cute_ though, so Erik waved hello, smiling kindly. He hadn't admitted it to himself up until now (that's what the alcohol had been for) but he had _missed_ Charles. It felt nice to see him again, after so long.

And then noticed his hand on the blonde woman's waist, just as the doors shut, and the complete look of _shock_ on Charles's face.

And then the floaty good-feeling from all the alcohol immediately disappeared as he realized he'd been _tricked._

He marched up the stairs, a drunk man on a mission, and got to the room on his key-card.

"Pietro Xavier!" 

_Both_ doors in front of him opened from opposite sides, and two children, dressed almost identically save for the hair, stepped out in front of him at the same time.

"Oh, don't do this to me, I'm already seeing double," he moaned, covering his eyes with a hand. God, those vodka cranberries were _such_ a bad idea in hindsight.

"It's me, Papa." said the twin on his left, in a familiar voice. "Wanda."

"Oh, _liebing,"_ Erik rushed forward and hugged her, cupping her face in his hand- the blonde hair and leather jacket suited her. "You look _wonderful._ "

Pietro hesitated in walking forward to join the hug, but Erik didn't hesitate to embrace him just as he did Wanda- how could he ever hesitate, when it came to his family?

"Oh, my darlings," he smiled, wishing to be sober to better remember this moment, placing a hand on each of their shoulders and feeling an unbelievable amount of pride and love for his children. "I can't believe you're together again."

Then he remembered seeing Charles in the elevator and the reason _why_ he was drunk as a skunk, and huffed. "But _how_ could you do this to me?"

" _Ahem,"_ Erik looked at the room Wanda had exited and saw another familiar face. "I hate to interrupt, but-" and, as ever, Raven got straight to the point, shutting her door behind her and heading them into Erik's hotel room. "-Might I suggest we continue this little pow-wow _inside_?"

Ah, that was probably… for the best.

Raven guided the children in the room, turning to face Erik with a slightly apologetic look. "Hi, uh… I'm not sure if you remember me-?"

"Raven!" He cried, kissing her cheek in greeting as he was ushered inside the room. He'd always had a soft spot for her, and felt bad about the… incident that had led to her almost getting arrested a while back. "It's nice to see you again."

"I always knew I liked you." He heard Raven mutter behind him, humor in her voice as she left to fetch something from her own room.

He saw Wanda and Pietro- or… was it Pietro and Wanda? sitting on a bench, and remembered why he felt the buzz of irritation underneath the buzz of the alcohol.

"One of you," he began, pacing the room. "Not sure which one at the moment-"

His children exchanged worried looks. Good. This was a worrying situation.

"One of you-" he paused and looked at them. "Told me your father _knew_ I would be arriving today. Well… I'm here to tell you, the man I just saw in the elevator had absolutely no idea he and I were on the same _planet,_ let alone in the same hotel."

"You saw Dad already?" Ah. _That_ one was Wanda. The one fidgeting in his seat then, that would be Pietro.

Erik sighed, walking over to the couch. "Yes, I did."

He flopped onto it, feeling his head pound with every heartbeat. God, those vodkas _were_ a mistake. "The man went _completely_ ashen, like I was the bloody ghost of Christmas past! … can one of you get something cold for my head?"

One of them- Wanda, he was _almost_ sure of it, but he had taken his eyes off of them again- got up as he continued to talk.

"I mean, don't you think I've pondered what it was going to be like, seeing your father again after all these years? ... Well, let me tell you, me waving like an idiot while Charles Xavier has his arms wrapped around some woman was _not_ exactly the scenario I had in mind, no siree."

Maybe-Wanda handed him a towel that dripped slightly with ice-cold water, but he didn't even _care_ as he placed it haphazardly on his forehead.

"Thank you, sweethea- _Janos!_ " He gasped and sat up as his butler exited the bathroom, whistling and dressed in nothing but a speedo. At the sound of his name, the man paused in both his song and walk. "What _are_ you doing?"

"Going for a dip, sir! … Do you mind?"

Maybe-Wanda giggled, which caused Maybe-Pietro to giggle, which almost made Erik want to cover _both_ of their eyes. Janos's getup left _nothing_ to the imagination.

But he couldn't really blame the other man. Erik's mental breakdown was Janos's paid vacation.

"Uhhh, no… no, no, that's… perfectly perfect, have a lovely time, have fun… someone ought to."

Raven ran back inside, and into Janos. She had, in Erik's opinion, never looked so _amused_ before.

"Hel- _lo_ there."

"Hello." James responded hesitantly. Erik couldn't blame him. Raven was looking more and more mischievous by the second.

"Raven, this is our butler, Janos. Janos, this is Raven… Charles's sister."

"How do you do," Raven grinned, extending a hand. "I'm Pietro's butler, you could say."

Janos shook her hand firmly. Maybe- no, _definitely_ Pietro- blew a raspberry.

To keep things from escalating (seriously, a smirking Raven was a dangerous Raven) Erik stood up, and addressed Wanda and Pietro.

"Kids, you are going to tell me why you _lied_ to me and brought me here without telling Charles!"

Pietro glanced over at Wanda, who shrugged and shook her head. Pietro got a look on his face Erik did _not_ like at that.

"Uhhh… did they now? I don't know anything about this at all, so I'm just… gonna pop back over to my room and check out the mini-bar situation." Raven said, trying to leave the room as fast as possible. 

Janos, who knew when a fight was brewing, was all too happy to try and leave as well.

"Allow me to assist you!" He cried, making for the door, directly behind Raven. 

"Wait." Erik said, and it was almost _comical_ how quickly they stopped. "Does… _everyone_ here know something I don't know?"

Raven and Janos turned to look at him, identical looks of guilt on their faces, but it was Wanda who spoke first.

"Papa… Daddy's getting married."

Erik was rather glad for the couch behind him, at those words.

Charles Xavier was getting married. _Again_.

And it wasn't to him.

"To Cruella deVile, and she's absolutely _awful_ Papa, we _can't_ let him go through with it." Wanda continued, looking miserable.

"She's all wrong for him Papa, and the only way he _won't_ marry her is if, well-" Pietro turned to Wanda. "You tell him, he knows you better."

Wanda signed, getting up to sit next to Erik, looking him in the eyes with an expression that was far more serious than most twelve year olds wore.

"The only way he _won't_ marry her… is if he sees _you_ again."

" _Wait_ a minute," Erik said, looking between the various occupants of the room, most notably his children. "You're not trying to set me up with your father, are you?"

"Actually… we are." Pietro said decisively. "You're _perfect_ for each other!"

Erik just stared stupidly, in shock. His kids had, at _chance_ , met at a camp and tried to set their divorced parents back up.

It was almost like something out of a movie.

"Hold it!" 

Raven and Janos were trying to sneak out _again,_ Wanda had her arms crossed ( _never_ a good sign) and Pietro looked _too_ proud of himself, as if this was his plan all along.

Erik raised an eyebrow, focusing his attention on Raven and Janos, who were trying _far_ too hard to leave in his opinion. "You two _knew_ about this?" 

Raven and Janos spun around slowly, eyes _far_ too wide to be innocent. "What...? Oh! _No!-"_

 _"-_ No, no." Janos said, as Raven continued to vehemently deny any involvement. "Oh no, absolutely _not,_ not at all sir, we had no _idea-"_

At Erik's disbelieving look and raised eyebrow, they dropped the act. 

"Yes-"

"Yeah-"

"Yes, I did know something-"

"Technically, yes, I had an inkling, anyhow-"

"Pietro told me the story, you know-"

"It was their idea, and it was so sweet-"

"I just fell for the story, I'm an old romantic-"

"Hey, so am I!-"

"Okay," Erik cut in, standing up abruptly and immediately regretting it. "Let me just say this loud and clear- Charles and I have _nothing_ in common…"

Erik paused for a second as he pondered the truth in that statement. " _Anymore_. Plus, in case you haven't noticed... he seems _very_ attached to that barebacked, blonde, model-like fiancee of his. And you two can tell him that the reason I'm here- the _only_ reason I'm here- is to switch the two of you back. So, let's do what we need to do and be done with it."

Erik sighed as he sat back down. Today was going to be a _long_ day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And cuuuuuut! 
> 
> Poor Erik, hung over and trying his best with two children who absolutely have no intention or interest in doing anything but their own thing. 
> 
> Raven is still going to get with Hank because I think they're sweet, in the scene with Janos is just where you can see where Pietro gets his mischievous side from- she was trying to figure out how best to fuck with Janos lol
> 
> Happy Monday! I hope you all have a great week :)


	14. Freefalling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shorter chapter today, but next week's is going to have many things, including (most likely) the camping trip!

Wanda left the room, walking down the hall as casually as she could, hands in her pockets and a smile on her face.

She almost ran smack into Charles, who popped a wheelie and spun around to face her. "Hey, Pietro, can you keep an eye on Emma for me while I pop downstairs for a bit?"

"Sure, dad." Wanda said, smiling. Pietro, who had run ahead and changed, was to confuse and distract whoever was downstairs. 

Which would now be Charles, and  _ that _ was becoming more and more hilarious.

H-hey, Piet…" Charles stuttered a bit, gesturing to himself as he turned back towards her. "How do I look? Good, great, good?"

"You look so great, dad!" Wanda flashed him a thumbs up as she texted Pietro and walked away. "So, so great."

_ Dad en route to you- ETA 1 min. _

\---

Pietro grinned as he strolled strategically down the front hall, feeling wickedly mischievous. As soon as he spotted Charles, he bolted towards him.

"Hey dad!"

"Pietro! … I thought I told you to keep an eye on Emma!"

"You did?" Pietro asked, confused, then remembered to play along with whatever Charles had told Wanda. "Oh! Right, you did. I was, uhhh... actually down here looking for her! Yeah."

He bounded in his feet a little, then leaned forward and hugged Charles tightly. God, he had  _ missed  _ his dad.

Not that he'd  _ say  _ it, of course.

"Bye dad!" He saluted, then walked away towards the elevator, humming under his breath.

_ "Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah… hmmm hmm hmm…" _

"Oh!" He stepped back as a tall, blonde woman stepped out, looking at him with a distasteful expression on her face.

"Where's your dad? He's  _ late." _ She hissed. 

Ah. This must be the infamous Emma Frost. 

She looked every bit as annoyed and conceited as Wanda had described her, so props to his sister for being so accurate with her descriptions.

Pietro only shrugged at her question, which seemed to annoy Emma further. "Don't know. By the way, has anyone told you you're looking very, very nice today?"

Emma sneered. "Don't try and play your little mind games with me, brat. Just because you're nice to me  _ now  _ doesn't mean I won't find a way to make your life a living  _ hell _ later on."

"Okay." Pietro said simply. "I still don't know where my dad is, though." 

And it was true. He didn't. He could've gotten on a plane already and flown to Hawaii and Pietro would be none the wiser.

"Well, if you see him, tell him I'll be at the bar, waiting," she huffed, walking away.

"Alright," Pietro shrugged again, nonchalantly hoping into the elevator and speaking loud enough for Emma's retreating form to hear. "Cruella."

The look she threw him made him smirk even more.

\---

Erik sat at the bar,  _ completing  _ regretting every single shitty decision that had led to him being hungover, at a bar in the same hotel as his ex, so he could swap kids and return to a company that he was barely able to run.

God. His life was so  _ messy.  _ When had he picked such a complicated bouquet of whoopsie-daisies?

"Here you are, sir," the bartender said, sliding over what promised to be a  _ strong  _ Bloody Mary. "That'll fix you right up. Just don't ask what's in it."

Alright.  _ Not _ a Bloody Mary then. But if it would fix him up...

Erik toasted in the vague direction of the newcomer at the bar, a slim, blonde lady who wore a distasteful expression. "Here's to … here's to you… and hoping your life is far less complicated than mine."

"Thank you," she said quietly, shifting in her seat. 

Oops. Erik got the feeling he had made her uncomfortable and quickly downed… whatever was in his cup with a slight noise of disgust.

"Martini, dry, please." The woman said, and of  _ course  _ Erik had to burp at that very moment.

"I beg your pardon," he said, slightly embarrassed. "I think I just drank  _ tar." _

"Here's your martini," the bartender interrupted, sliding a tall glass over to the stranger. "And here's your bill, Mr. Lehnsherr."

"Thank you." Erik picked up the bill as the stranger stirred her drink, quelling the urge to rip the metal spoon from her hand as she tapped it against her glass daintily. He signed the check, adding a handsome tip as he slid the slip of paper back over, heaving a small sigh of relief as whatever voodoo magic was in that mystery drink began to work.

The stranger did a double take as she saw his name on the check, eyes widening in shock. " _ You're  _ Erik Lehnsherr?"

Erik had no  _ idea  _ how to respond to the accusation, and offered a confused smile. "... Guilty."

The stranger squealed in delight, kicking her legs and leaning forward. "I just saw a wedding gazebo you designed in Vogue and fell _completely_ in love with it! I texted your- well, _our_ - company yesterday and asked if you could make another, and they said you were out of town- I just-" she squealed again. "I can't believe it! It's like fate."

She held a hand out,smiling widely. "I'm Emma Frost. I'm going to be a member of your company soon!" 

"How do you do," Erik said politely, shaking the offered hand. The name rang a vague bell, but with everything that had been going on lately, the comings and goings of old and new employees.

He was sure it wasn't too important though.

  
  


\---

Charles wheeled around the poolside distractedly, unsure if he had imagined the face he had seen only minutes ago. 

Could he really be  _ here? _ In California?

That was crazy talk though. Erik had sworn off of California ever since that fateful day years ago.

Still…

"Charles, I think this hotel is  _ perfect  _ for the wedding," Vicky said from behind him, a motherly hand on his wheelchair. "The more I see it, the more I like it!"

"Me too," Charles said distractedly, listening to the ramblings of his future parents-in-law with only half his attention, eyes and mind scanning and sweeping the crowd until-

There.

"Absolutely…" he continued, eyes tracking the movements of his (former) husband.

He was older than when Charles had last seen him, yes. With grey flecked nicely here and there in his brown hair, Erik Lehnsherr stood only thirty feet away from him.

And he didn't even notice Charles.

"Now tell me dear, how many should we expect from your side of the family?" Vicky said, gazing around happily, completely oblivious to the turmoil inside Charles. "Just a guesstimate, of course."

"Uh, I'm not sure at the moment… if- if you'll excuse me just a second…" Charles trailed off, following Erik around the poolside like a lovesick puppy, wheeling around small crowds of people and chairs, all obstacles in the way of meeting an old friend. He heard and subsequently discarded the warnings from Raven, a vaguely familiar man, Pietro and several murmurs from others, as they were no match for a man on a mission such as Charles, who was determined and downright  _ eager _ , almost, to finally see Erik once again and to, one way or another, properly, formally meet his-

_ Crash! _

With an embarrassing shriek, Charles rolled straight into the blasted pool.

And Erik, of course, damn him, thank  _ Christ  _ for him, immediately levitated him out of the pool.

Beyond embarrassing but doing his very best to hide it as the snap of a camera went off from somewhere behind him, he rolled forward and tried his best to smile up at Erik.

"Hello Erik."

"Hello, Charles." 

Charles was relieved to hear only fondness and a bit of second-hand embarrassment from the other man, staring up into his eyes as Erik rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Oh gosh, there you are… you know..." Charles heard him mutter to himself, and Charles mentally sighed to himself.

"Is there something going on that I should know about? Because I'm stunned to see you… uh, clearly-" Charles gestured to his dripping self. "Uhh… you don't seem as stunned to see me. I-I mean, I haven't seen or heard from you in- in  _ ages _ now, and all of a sudden, in the very day that I'm-"

"Dad." Pietro's voice was quieter than usual, and a quiet Pietro was  _ never  _ a good sign. "I can explain why he's here."

"Pietro… you know who he is?" Charles asked, feeling more and more confused and caught off-guard by the second.

"Actually… Yes. And actually..." Pietro's voice changed, a British accent instead of his American one. "... I'm not Pietro."

" _ Actually, _ " a blue blur zoomed into his peripheral, stopping directly in front of Charles. "I am."

Charles could only stare. And stare. And stare.

"...  _ Both _ of them?" He asked quietly. Then, louder, as he finally registered what he was seeing. "...  _ Wanda?!  _ Pietro?"

"I guess you and Papa kind of think alike," Wanda said, as a way of explanation. "Because you both sent us to the same camp, and we met there-" Pietro grabbed Wanda's hand and held on tight as she continued. "And the whole thing just sort of… spilled out."

"They switched places on us, Charles." Erik chuckled, gesturing to the two wonderful, amazing, heart attack inducing children in front of him.

"You mean I've had Wanda with me all this time," Charles said, feeling slightly ashamed. How had he not noticed his son was actually his  _ daughter?! _ He was a  _ telepath, _ for christ's sake. Had he really been that caught up in everything?

"Well,  _ I  _ wanted to know what you were like, and- and Pietro wanted to know Papa-" Pietro nodded very decisively. "And… are you angry?"

"No." Charles reassured her, looking at her- _ really  _ looking at her- for the first time in over a decade. "No, honey, of  _ course  _ not… I just- can't believe it's  _ you." _

Wanda walked forward and into his awaiting arms, and he hugged her tightly, smiling softly as he kissed her forehead.

"Last time I saw you, you had diaper rashes!" He cried, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "Oh dear, you're all wet now-"

"-That's alright-"

"- _ Look  _ at you." Charles was smiling so hard his face was starting to hurt, voice bursting with pride as he looked at his daughter. "Look at you."

"Well, I'm quite grown up now, and quite without my dad." Wanda said.

"And  _ I'm  _ headed into my crazy, mixed up teenager years and I'll be the one of the  _ only _ kids in my kids without both of my parents to fight with." Pietro finished.

Charles looked him over with a critical eye. "Pietro… you've been in London all this time?"

Pietro nodded quickly, and, try as he might, Charles couldn't be mad at him. Not after seeing the way he and Wanda interacted, not after seeing the way Erik looked at his son- at  _ their  _ son- with that wonderful look of pride and love.

"Come here, squirt."

Pietro grinned, dashing forward for his chance to receive a soaking wet hug from his dad. "Papa's  _ amazing  _ Dad, I don't know how you ever let him go."

Well. That- that was quite a comment to make.

"Children," Erik said quietly. "Why don't you let your dad and I talk alone for a couple of minutes, okay?"

"Sure, fine." 

"Take your time."

And with that, the twins left, hand in hand and grinning like cats that got the cream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You just KNOW the twins are satisfied af their plan worked out in the end


	15. Can We Just Talk?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is allllllll Charles and Erik's time to shine baby! (Feat. Sassy Raven because she is the best)

Erik gazed at the man he hadn't seen in over a decade, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"I can't believe this," Charles said quietly, in shock. "Seeing you here, seeing the twins together again… ouch." Charles winced as he touched a spot on his forehead, where a small amount of blood had begun to trickle down. Erik felt a wave of concern wash over him, and he leaned over the other man to check his injuries.

"You're injured," he muttered, gently touching Charles's temple, where a small cut was indeed there and bleeding. He waved over a nearby waitress, ignoring Charles's weak protests. "Can I get a first aid kit, please?"

As the lady ran off, Erik continued to look him over, like a starved man gazing on a feast.

"The years have been kind to you, old friend."

Charles chuckled, ducking his head to hide the unmistakable hints of a blush. "I could say the same about you, Erik… or do you still prefer 'Magneto'?"

"Ughhh, don't remind me of the terrible life choices I made in my youth." Erik groaned in a teasing tone. 

"Let's pray the children don't inherit your ridiculous need for flair then, or you and I will both be fully grey before our retirement years." Charles said, shooting him that infuriatingly sweet grin. 

It was like being sucker punched in the best way possible, and Erik didn't wait to respond. "My friend, they switched places and  _ faces  _ to lure us into a- a parent trap of sorts… I think it might be too late already."

Listening to Charles laugh was the sweetest sound in the world to him, and Erik accepted the first aid kit from the returning waitress with a nod of thanks, if only to keep himself from saying something that he couldn't control.

"Lean forward," he instructed Charles, who did so instantly, without hesitation. 

It was a kindness, to still be treated with this level of trust, even after all the years apart.

"Charlie!" A startled voice shouted, and Erik looked up in confusion at the same time Charles did, only to see the blonde woman from earlier at the bar (Emily?) standing a few feet from them.

" _ Finally,  _ there you are… Oh my… uh, well, I see you've met Erik Lehnsherr! He makes sculptures and stuff with his mutation, he agreed to make us an archway for our wedding shoot."

Erik stood, looking at Charles with an incredulous look on his face, a look that was mirrored in the other man's face, and the lady (Elana?) glanced back and forth between them. 

She seemed to understand there was a history between the two of them, which led Erik to wonder if she was a mutant too. Maybe some kind of empathy ability?

"What- I.. I don't understand, how did the two of you meet, and… Charlie, why are you all wet?"

"You're making an archway for my fiance?" Charles asked Erik, smiling in a way that almost boarded on manic.

"Well, I- I didn't know she was  _ your  _ fiance."

"How did we meet? How did  _ you  _ two meet?" Charles said as he answered his fiance's question with another question, waving his hand and gesturing between them. 

Erik almost felt sorry for the poor lady.

"Am I missing something here?"

You know what, Emma,"  _ Ah, her name was Emma. _ "This is one small world."

"Uh… how- how small?" Emma inquired, folding up a small fan in her hand. In an instant, Wanda was at her elbow.

"Hi, Em." Wanda said cheerfully, a large grin on her face. 

Emma did not share her enthusiasm, and instead  _ glared  _ at her, which made Erik instantly want to tear her throat out as he sipped on something  _ strong _ .

"Hello, Pietro." She sniffed. A second later, the  _ real  _ Pietro bolted out from right behind her, matching Wanda's now mischievous smirk.

"How you doing?!"

"I just _said-_ **AHHH**!" Emma jumped back, almost breaking her heels as she screamed and looked at the children beside her. " **AHHH**! **Ahhh**! **Ahhhh**!"

"Emma," Charles said, with such calmness Erik wondered if he was genuinely dissociating. "Did ever tell you Pietro is a twin?"

"No, I- I believe you must've… forgotten to mention that little detail, baby."

"Don't feel bad Em, he forgot to mention it to me, too." Pietro grinned. "By the way, I'm the  _ real  _ Pietro-" he pointed at Wanda. "This is  _ Wanda _ . She was pretending to be me, while  _ I  _ was pretending to be her.

"And this-" Pietro swept a hand out, and Erik felt in awe at the amount of love and pride in his son's voice. "Is our father, Erik Lehnsherr."

"You were married to  _ him?" _ Emma asked, sounding both confused and slightly… impressed? Annoyed? It was hard to tell.

"Guilty again," Erik muttered, Charles nodding slightly.

"Well, this  _ is  _ a small world." 

"And getting smaller." Charles added mildly, spotting Janos and Raven causally viewing the reunion as if it was a particularly interesting soap opera.

Which, to be fair, it may as well have been.

"And  _ what  _ a coincidence that we're all here in the same place on the same weekend." Emma said shortly, the twins trying and failing to look completely, one hundred percent innocent. "My, my,  _ my, _ how…  _ sweet. _ "

In the distance, Raven sipped on a screwdriver and Janos snapped a picture of the scene, both wearing shit-eating grins that greatly matched the twins' own smiles.

\---

"Pietro, I've had enough surprises for today, will you  _ please  _ just tell me where we're going?" Charles begged, as Pietro led him out the front doors of the hotel. 

Pietro had been annoyingly secretive about whatever plan he had cooked up  _ now,  _ only instructing Charles to "spruce up a bit." Raven, who Charles had a sneaking suspicion was in on the  _ entire  _ thing, just winked at him when he asked for answers from her, then left the room in a hurry, claiming to want to spend some time alone in the casinos.

Which led to now, where Pietro was dressed up in a sharp, pink suit, hair actually brushed for once, and Charles beside him in the nicest suit he had packed for the weekend.

"You're gonna love it dad, trust me." Pietro promised, grinning widely.

"Umm… hello." 

Charles spun around and looked at Erik, feeling like he just had the air knocked out of his chest as he gazed at his ex-husband.

"Hey," Charles said quietly, at a loss for words.

Erik was standing tall in a dark red suit and tie, hair neatly slicked back the way he had worn it in his younger years. Wanda smiled from in front of him and waved, dressed in a light blue and white gown with a matching hairband.

"So, uhh…" Erik rubbed the back of his neck in a way that was achingly familiar as he leaned down to whisper to Charles. "Do you have any idea where they're taking us?"

"Not a clue." Charles replied, and Erik nodded.

"... Right."

The car ride passed in relative peace, with Wanda and Pietro giggling and playing games together to pass the time. It warmed his heart to see the two of them so comfortable and happy with each other, and he felt a small pit of guilt at having kept them apart.

Charles himself, meanwhile, was having trouble both meeting Erik's eyes and being unable to look away from them, and he noticed Erik having the exact same problem. The twins found this to be hilarious, and so Charles and Erik were the unwitting victims of merciless teasing and jokes from a pair of absurdly mischievous and devious twelve year olds.

He hadn't felt this kind of joy in over a decade.

When they finally pulled to a stop, and Erik had helped Charles out of the car and into his wheelchair, the first thing Charles noticed was the silence, city sounds a mere background noise this far away. The scent of salt water and, inexplicably, flowers permitted the air.

The next thing he noticed was the docks, the gentle sound of waves, and the few, bright stars that decorated the sky. It was… a very calming atmosphere.

"Where  _ are  _ we?" Erik asked, looking at Wanda. She shrugged, saying nothing as Charles rolled up next to them, Pietro right behind him.

Chales looked around at the open sky and empty docks, not a table or hint of food in sight . " _ This  _ is where we're eating?"

"Nope; actually..." Pietro said, popping the 'p'. " _ That's  _ where we'll be eating."

A large boat- a cruise ship, almost- stood in the water some odd few hundred feet away, lights warm and inviting.

Charles didn't know if he should laugh or not. Where on  _ earth  _ had his kids gotten a _boat_ __ from?

Wanda and Pietro seemed unusually impatient as they all but pushed their parents towards the boat that would get them onto the ship, trying to get them aboard as quickly as possible.

"Wow," Charles said as he was levitated over the stairs, looking at the beautiful scenery before him. (Unfortunately, there was no ramp.) "So… How are we paying for this?"

"Well," Wanda started. "We pooled our allowance."

"Yeah, Right.  _ Wanda _ ." Charles gently chastised. Never lie to a telepath.

"Alright, Uncle Azazel chipped in a bit."

" _ Wanda. _ " It was Erik's turn to call out, setting Charles down gently.

"O- _ kay,  _ he chipped in a  _ lot _ ."

"C'mon, you guys are gonna love this." Pietro said, leading the way with a beckoning hand.

"Pretty snazzy." Charles remarked, following his (bossy) son's orders.

Pietro stopped at the end of the small walkway they were on, and gestured to the unopened door in front of him. "Erik and Charles, your dinner awaits."

Erik, who was in front of Charles, gasped as he opened the door and stepped inside. A moment later, Charles understood why.

The scene before him was a peaceful, gentle atmosphere, set with soft candle light and a welcome breeze.

"Children," Erik said quietly, fondly. It seemed he liked the place just as much as the twins had hoped.

Speaking of…

"The table's only set for two." Charles pointed out.

"Oh," Wanda said gleefully. "That's the other part of the surprise." She shared a look of pure mischief with Pietro. "We're not joining you."

"No, but I am." Raven popped out from a side door that Charles hadn't noticed until now, and he wondered how much bribery and blackmail the twins had used against Raven to get her into  _ that _ get-up. "Good evening, I'm Raven and I'll be your server for this evening… no wisecracks, please."

"And I'm Janos, your sommelier." Janos announced, looking entirely too cheerful for someone wearing an outfit that terrible. 

"May I offer you both a taste of the bubbly, in the hopes that you'll get a bit snookered and not fire both the lady beside me- and myself- for following the orders of these  _ audacious  _ twelve year olds?"

"Wanda, mood music please." Raven said, completely ignoring Janos's plea, and Wanda was quick to grab the remote next to the on-deck stereo system. A moment later, a familiar song popped on.

" _ I… love you…" _

Charles couldn't help sharing a glance with Erik, but between the blushing and the eye avoidance, it didn't last very long.

"Just relax." Wanda said, as Raven and Janos busied themselves with the food. "Sail through time, back to yesteryear."

And with that, the twins made their getaway, giggling and whispering excitedly to one another as they shut the door behind them. Given the looks on Raven and Janos's faces, Charles couldn't help but be under the impression that, until dinner was over, he was to be kept on deck with Erik.

And his sister and ex-husband's butler, of course. 

Raven at least had the courtesy to wait until they were gone to speak. "You do get all this, don't you?"

Erik sighed. "... Yes, I'm beginning to."

Charles wheeled over to a fairly impressive recreation of the lifesaver that was in the torn photo he had given Pietro. "They're recreating our honeymoon… The music-"

"The help!" Raven pointed out, arms spread wide for emphasis.

Erik smiled, touching the lifesaver gently. "It's so sweet."

Charles, however, knew there were many ways this could go, and prepared accordingly.

"Janos, I think I'll have that drink."

Janos sauntered over with two champagne flutes, and he accepted the drink gratefully.

"Thank you, Janos." Erik sipped his champagne delicately, and looked at Janos curiously when he cleared his throat.

"Oh! Yeah." Raven rushed forward, and popped a single wine bottle into a bucket of ice, then whisked herself and Janos away.

Charles wheeled over to look out at the view in front of them. "You know," he began. "I haven't been on a boat since our honeymoon."

"Me neither," Erik confessed. Charles looked up at Erik, raising his glass.

"Well then, here's too… uh..."

"Our children." Erik supplied helpfully, for which Charles was relieved. The children were a safe, neutral topic to discuss.

"Our children." He agreed, clinking the glasses together gently. 

The very children in question were, at the moment, watching them closely, until Charles and Erik turned to face them, at which point they popped out of sight, muffled giggles and whispers still audible.

"Well, now I know how a goldfish feels," Charles joked, feeling a small bit of victory as Erik laughed.

"Ugh." Erik said in mock disgust, but looked fondly at the windows where the twins had been moments ago.

"You know, if we're ever… you know,  _ really _ alone, we should discuss what happened between… us." Charles said quietly. "It all feels a bit hazy to me now. It ended... so fast."

"It  _ started _ so fast." Erik pointed out, and Charles couldn't stop the chuckle that escaped him upon hearing that.

"Well, that part I remember perfectly." He said ruefully, and this time, they both laughed together.

\---

Raven watched Erik and Charles out on the deck, holding back the temptation to throw an apple at them and scream "KISS ALREADY".

She wasn't ashamed to admit that she  _ hated  _ Emma. That diamond bitch wouldn't treat her brother right if left didn't exist, and all it took was the twins giving her the juicy, juicy details of their plan for her to agree to partake. 

Erik was so much cooler and better for both the kids  _ and _ her brother anyhow.

The waitress outfit though… she really could've done without, if it hadn't been for those damn puppy eyes. If Pietro's were bad, then Pietro's  _ plus  _ Wanda's was  _ worse _ . They even managed to rope Janos into the whole affair, and the man really  _ had _ been planning on popping down to the hotel casinos for some alone time.

"Now, I'll serve the food, and you get the drinks?" Janos offered, and caught sight of the look on Raven's face. " _ Pour _ the drinks, not  _ spill  _ them? We are trying to set them up, not break them apart further."

Raven groaned. "But they're just ignoring their feelings!" She ignored the laughter outside of the room to continue. "They need a push. And someone with common sense to  _ make  _ that push."

"They need  _ time,  _ and  _ you _ need to relearn what "common sense" means."

Raven groaned again. "Uggggghhh… fine. Alright. You said I was on drinks?"

"Actually, I've changed my mind." Janios said dryly. 

Raven rolled her eyes.

\---

"So, I… see you've done fantastically for yourself." Erik began, somewhat awkwardly. "Your dream of owning your own vineyard… actually came true."

"And what about you, old friend? You were always drawing on napkins and newspapers… or else, breaking apart paperclips and staples to shape in your boredom. And now… you own a beautiful business."

"Yeah, it's- it's great." Erik thought about some of the more complicated aspects, and thought about not telling Charles, but what harm was there in delving into the details? "Well… I might be stepping down soon, it's- a lot, taking care of two children and a business, but other than that, well... we've both got what we wanted, in the end."

"We did." Charles agreed.

Raven swept around them, carrying a tray of soup with a lot more precision than Erik would've normally given her credit for. He gently touched her shoulder in thanks as she served them, fiddling with his spoon. "What are we going to do about the children?"

"Well, we very well can't keep them apart now that they know each other, unless we want a repeat of this- or worse."

Erik shuddered slightly. He didn't want to know what  _ worse  _ looked like. "Maybe I can keep them for half the year and you can keep them for the other half?"

"Erik, that's nuts. You can't just send those kids to two different schools on two different  _ continents  _ every year." Raven, ever a voice of reason, pointed out.

"I agree." Charles said, and Erik tried a different idea.

"Well, maybe… I can keep them both for a  _ whole _ year and then you-"

He cut himself as Raven and Charles shook their heads.

"Erik, that's why we came up with… you know…" Charles paused, clearing his throat. Raven, who had been agreeing with him not so silently, jumped a bit, then gave a rueful grin and left.

"Enjoy your soup!"

Charles waited until the door shut to continue. "Anyhow… that's why we came up with what we have now."

"Really?" Erik said. "I thought it was because we agreed never to see each other again."

"Not 'we', Erik."

"Well…" Erik put his spoon down, trying not to fiddle. "That part's become… a bit hazy to me too, over the years."

"You don't remember the day you packed?" Charles teased.

"Oh, no, that part I remember, um… quite well, actually." Erik flushed as he remembered a  _ particularly  _ memorable moment of their argument. "Did I, um… did I hurt you when I threw that… the, umm…"

"It was Raven's hairdryer." Charles supplied.

"Oh, right… sorry."

Argument aside, Charles didn't seem to hold it against him. If anything, he was laughing, and Erik couldn't help but join. It  _ was  _ pretty funny now, looking back on it.

"So, this may be the last time I'm ever alone with you, so I have to ask… about that day…" Charles said slowly, and although there wasn't any harshness in his tone, there was a note of seriousness among the curiosity that made Erik pay close attention to his words. "Why'd you do it?"

"Oh, Charles…" Erik folded his hands, resting his chin on them as he searched for the right words to use, to say. "We were both… so young, and had such terrible tempers… and that day, I just… got on my first 4-74 and you-" he sighed, almost unable to meet Charles's eyes as he finished. "You didn't come after me."

When he finally glanced back up, Charles looked stunned at his answer. "I didn't know that you wanted me to." He answered truthfully.

Erik shrugged. "Well… the past is in the past now, so… let's just put on a brave face for the children and- and get this show on the road."

"Yeah, sure…" If he wasn't mistaken, he could almost hear the wistfulness and disappointment in Charles's voice. "Let's… get the show on the road."

Erik nodded, and that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... except it's not, we still have a few more chapters to go, and these two dorks still have to figure out their feelings for one another!
> 
> Next chapter: the beloved (and hilarious) camping trip :D


End file.
